HUMAN NEEDS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13919, 2 June 1909, Page 7

HUMAN NEEDS.

A LIVING WAGE

.MR JCSTICE ABECKETTS DECISION. •* Argus."; Sitting in the State Court of Industrial Appeal, Mr Justice A* Beckett Jiuve his decision in connection with the lellmongers" dispute. Mr Arthur (instructed by Mr J. Wolfe; appeared lor the union, and Mr Mann (instructed by Messrs- Woilnston and McC'omas) tor the employers. Mr .Justice A'Beckett said that sitting for the first time in the Court of Industrial Appeals, lie was asked by the employees in the fellmongers' trade to revise a determination as to the. hours of labour and rates of payment. Like Mr Justiw Hood, the first judge of the Court, he found the greatest difficulty in discovering from the act what Parliament intended to lie the governing considerations for the special boards, and for the Court that heard appeals from them. He felt sure that thb Legislature could not have intended the boards to be guided by one set- of considerations, and the Court by another, or that a' Judge of the Supreme Court should be left to regulate hours of work and gradations of wages at his absolute discretion without any regard to prevailing usage or rale of pay. It was plain that the primary object of Parliament- was to benefit the workers. But there was no indication anywhere that such an object was to be attained by any fancitul otv even philanthropic, mode, or by doing injustice to others. He bad been urged, its was Mr Justice Hoed, xo lis a new standard on a liberal estimate of human needs, and of the provision lor them that should establish the just reward of labour, though doing so might cause an industrial uj>heaval that would shake all industries witliia the operation of the act. He answered. a> his predecessor dm, thai, on reading the act, he could and no indication ot any intention mat wages boaVds should resort to such radical readjustment of tlie relations ot employer and employed. ine a.-t > intended wages boards., and not judges of the Supreme Court, xo settle tnese matters. The boards had practically settled them, for appeals to the Court were few. An appeal was given lor tne purpose ot correcting tlie mistakes of tlie board, not to make a judge a social retormer, at> liberty to begin anew oil a system of his own or dernwl from some sociological writer. f rom the evidence he would conelude, that there had been an appreciable increase in the cost of living during the last five years. Owing _to liuefcuatiou in. prices of food articles and rents there was not the permanence of altered conditions which would precede the making of what _ would practically be a peilnanent addition to \vft ff cs. No employer would be listened "to by a wages board if he came to ask for" a reduction in wages because meat,. bread, and rent had become cheaper ■ since ttie la-st determination. Conceding that the increase spoken ot t,y the'employees might be found to bo permanent, it did not follow that au all-JdkUnd increase in wages should be enforced under the acts whenever a rise iu tlie cost of living occurred. A "eneral rise iu the cost of living, followed by a corresponding rise in all wages, would' surely mean an additional advance ia wages to follow, and so the matter would go on ad infinitum If Mr Justice A Beckett were, now to raise the fellmongers wages by rt-asou solely of such an increase in the cost of living, as had been proved in the present case, he could not logically refuse to make the same addition to wages in any trade that appealed to the Court. He would not make an Iteration solely on -this ground, but where he had made an alteration that seemed to be justly called ior ou other grounds the increased cost of living had been an element in fixing itS amount. . Coming to his conclusions, Mr .Justice A'Beckett said he would not increase the a(is paid for the ordmarv vard hands. He would give lorcmen scourers having one or.more persons working under them 45s instead ot 4_. >, men iii charge of limes 45s instead ot iJtjs, foreman of makers of trocters having one or more persons working under lnm 45s instead of 365, foreman ot tanners 43s instead of 365. hands employed at iiesliing machine 42s instead of 3(is. hands employed at burring machine 425. He had done little more so far than, pick out of the crowd j ur whom 3Cs was fixed as the minimum men who had been already discriminated and were receiving higher pay. 11l some instances no additional payment by the employers would occur. Employers would not forget- that his determination did not mean that a good man should not receive more, but only that no man employed in the various capacities should receive less. The existing determination fixed 4d per dozen for stretching basils by hand, and 5d for setting down, and he would award an additional Id a dozen in each instance. In regard to the rates paid to pullers, the employers asked for a uniform rate of lid "all the year round, instead of 7d aiid yd. He declined to order a uniform rate, but would add id a dozen to both rates.' In regard to woolsorters, men paid by wages and on piecework were sorting side by side, and he thought it would be an arbitrary step to have nothing but a wages system. It the parties could not agree, he would interfere in some way. The present minimum for wages was £- 'Js. and .-some employers were paying ii'l ss. The New South Wales awaru was £2 os, and he fixed the same rate, and desired that the piecework prices should be fixed at what would give a trifle over i'2 os workiug for a week of 48 hours. - In making his increases he had checked anything that the employers could reasonably call extravagance. He could nut suppose that any appreciable inducement to carry on business would be weakened by what lie had done.

In regard to the question of a living wage, the decision of Mr Justice Higgins, sitting iu a federal court under a federal act, did not bind Mr Justice A'Beckett if he dissented from it. He ought not to follow it, but his construction of the Victorian act involved no dissent from tlie attractive doctrines of the harvester case. He concurred in all that was there said of what was necessary to constitute the frugal comfort of the working man. On the evidence before him as to household expenses, Mr Justice A'Beckett- thought that tlie 42s a week fixed by Mr Justice Higgins was a proper allowance for a family of five; but, even if lie thought he was bound to give a living wage of 42s to the lowest employee on the scale, he should not feel bound to lift all above him, and put distances at which they stood before he was moved up. The act did not intend the board or the Court to fix the living wage for a man and family as the minimum rate in all cases. Looking at section 122, he thought the living wage there contemplated was the personal wage. It was a section to safeguard an endangered industry, and it would be a strange way of doing so to insist as a condition to its existence that the least- it should pay to any of its employees should be a wage large enough to support a man,

wife and family. A wage of 36s a Tveek was sufficient to support a single man. If the employees' contention

were correct it would make the creation of wages Itoards injurious rather than beneficial to the class intended to benefit, and would conduce more to unemployment than to employment at i high wages. As a matter of cousidera- | tion, Mr Justice A'Beckett held that the act did not prescribe as the lowestwage to he fixed by a wages board a wage which would support a man and his"wife and family in frugal comfort. There was no special appeal from his decision if he had misconstrued the act in this respect. Parliament alone could correct his mistake. In conclusion, Mr Justice A'Beckettsaid he had stated that his decision was not the final determination, and he would hear, on a day to be fixed, what the parties mialit desire to say on the subjects touched upon—not. of course, to reopen the whole question, hut to clear away any misapprehension. There might he a conference between the parties, and if an agreement were come to it might !>•■• advantageous to embody the results fir the conference in the determination, in place of the recommendation in lis decision as it stood.