COST OF LIVING

Otago Witness, Issue 3610, 22 May 1923, Page 58

COST OF LIVING

LABOUR M.P’S. PROTEST. CHRISTCHURCH, May 7. At a meeting of the Canterbury Labour members of Parliament, Messrs Howard, Sullivan, Armstrong, and M’Combs being present, it was decided to issue a reply to the Prime Minister’s latest pronouncement regarding a reduction in the cost of living bonus to civil servants. This reply states, inter alia, that the Prime Minister has made many attempts to justify what the Government had done in reducing the incomes of public servants. The Prime Minister’s propaganda would not convince the Public Servants’ Association because they knew the facts. The propaganda was intended for the elector who was unacquainted with the real facts. In Jime, 1820. an agreement was arrived at. and a promise was made by the Prime Minister that for every 10 per cent, increase in the cost of living, or 10 per cent, decrease there was to be a readjustment of the bonuses. In 1921. when there had been a considerable increase in the cost, of living, the Prime Minister was asked to honour this promise, but instead of (loing so the Prime Minister repudiated his undertaking, and said there was “no agreement as to readjustment.” Mr F. W. Millar (of the Public Service Association), Mr IT. E. Combs (of the Post and Telegraph Officers’ Association), and Mr M. J. Mack (of A.S.R.S) all emphatically assert that such promise had been made. Mr Massey a failure to fulfil his promise to increase bonuses in proportion to the increase in the cost of living, and the injustice of calculating cost of living percentages on tho “food groups” only, has reduced the standard of living of the public servants of the dominion well below the 1914 standard.