BUILDING TRADE

Southland Times, Issue 21196, 24 September 1930, Page 5

BUILDING TRADE

DIFFICULT ECONOMIC QUESTIONS. ARBITRATION COURT PERPLEXED. (Per United Press Association.) Dunedin, September 23. “No doubt the depression will have some good results in the shape of better methods and a reduction in prices,” said Mr Justice Fraser in the Arbitration Court during the hearing of the Builders’ and Contractors! Labourers’'dispute in which the representative of the -workers claimed that wages were a small factor in the cost of production. Mr Justice Frazer replied that if the building of a house were taken as an ex-' ample wages might amount to 40 per cent, of the cost, but a large proportion of the remaining 60 per cent, of the cost was also accounted for by labour. For instance, there were the cutting and the transport of the timber which was used. He was quite sure that if it were possible every member of the court would do his best to obtain higher 1 wages and a higher standard of living for all trades, but these economic questions were not always easy to understand or to express. A few years ago there might have been 50 builders in Dunedin employing 5000 men and doing £5'000,000 worth of work in a year, but in a slump period such as the present the amount might be reduced to £1,000,000 with the builders cutting the prices down to the bare level to obtain work. • How could the court produce an equal amount of work or an equal or greater amount of wages? This would give an idea of the difficult questions which the court was asked to solve. He frankly admitted that he could not find a solution. 1