POPULATION OF ROTORUA

Southland Times, Issue 23181, 23 April 1937, Page 7

POPULATION OF ROTORUA

EFFECT ON AWARD WAGES (United Press Association) ROTORUA, April 22. “The trouble is that these people go along and make these inelastic, cumbersome and inaccurate awards and then expect the courts to interpret them,” said Mr S. L. Paterson, S.M., in the Rotoruh Magistrate’s Court to- , day during the course of the hearing of the case involving an alleged breath of the New Zealand Typographical Workers’ Award. The Department of Labour claimed a £lO penalty from the publishers of The Rotorua Morning Post on the grounds that they had employed men at less than the minimum rates fixed for printing establishment employees in towns of more than 6000 population. The defendants contended that although the last census had shown the population of Rotorua to be 6531, their information was that it was onl}’ 5494 which, they claimed, entitled them to pay the wages for towns over 3000 and under 6000 population. They contended that a large number of visitors, estimated by the Government Statistician at 1237, in Rotorua at the time of the taking of the census should not be considered as forming part of the population for the purposes of an award. ■ . r The Magistrate, who reserved his decision, said that a definition of the population appeared to be very necessary. In the award at present it was most inelastic and cumbersome.