WAGES AND PRICES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4562, 20 April 1942, Page 2

WAGES AND PRICES

COMPLICATED PROBLEM f ' ■ . I Mr Oscar R. Hobson, city editor of the “News Chronicle,” London, writing about a recent speech by Sir Walter Citrine at the Trades Union Congress on wages stabilisation, says:— “Stabilisation of wages,” Sir Walter said, “must be opposed because, though wages have risen by 20 per cent since the war, prices have risen by 30 per cent, and stabilisation would therefore mean that workers ‘would be expected to accept a depressed standard of life for the duration of the war.’ That, however, is exactly what is being expected, not only of the organised workers, but of every member of the community. I can think of many members o fthe armed forces and their dependants whose standards have gone down by a good deal more than the margin between a 130 price index and a 120 wages index. There are many black-coated workers and small pensioners whose income index is still at 100 and who have had no increases to neutralise the higher cost of living, Sir Walter Citrine’s point that wages stabilisation would be inequitable while there exists any inequality of income is a dangerous twoedged argument for him to use. After the effects of the last Budget on the higher incomes any equalisation of net incomes would bring the average to-day well below the figures earned , by the skilled workmen who form the