The Star. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1923. THE END OF THE BONUS SYSTEM IN SIGHT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17178, 23 October 1923, Page 6

The Star. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1923. THE END OF THE BONUS SYSTEM IN SIGHT.

Die Arbitration Court lias given its last cost-of-living pr onouncement, the effect of which will be to leave wages as they are until December 31, or until the expiry of existing awards. In all applications for new awards after December 31, however, the Court will still be obliged to make its own computations regarding cost of living, for although the bonus, as such, is to disappear, it will be added to the basic wage. The Court finds that in the last three months there has been an increase, of a shilling a week in the cost of living on the basis of computation adopted by the Court, but as there was a drop of 2/- in the preceding three months, for which no reduction was, ordered, the Court, very reasonably for the sake of stability, has ordered no increase in the present instance, leaving the worker a shilling a week better off than he would have been if the earlier deduction had been insisted upon. The position therefore is that if the Court were called upon to frame a new award on January 1 next, it would fix a basic wage at a shilling a week less than the present wages and bonus combined, that is, assuming that it adheres to the present method of computing the cost of living. It is clear that the cost of living must always be a factor in the Court's deliberations, but it is by no means certain that the present basis is scientific or just. Consequently it is quite likely that either employers or workers may feel constrained to urge an alteration in the method of computation, designed to further their own interests,. On the other hand, the Court has expressed the opinion that food prices have become more or less stable over the past eighteen months, and it may he taken for granted that in future disputes it will adhere to the rule, expressed in the present instance, that in the interests of trade and industry wages should not fluctuate at intervals more than is necessary.

The principal point to which the Court has addressed itself is the computation of rent, a very difficult subject viewed from any angle, for while it is gratifying to note an increase in the number of owner-occupiers, the high cost of building is still making for high rentals, and relief does not appear to be in sight. Admittedly, too, a very much higher housing standard is demanded by all classes of the community, and the substantial advances that may now be secured from the Government in regard to new houses help to keep rents up from the Court’s point of view. And of course housing is only one factor. In other directions, apart from the food groups, there is a decided upward tendency—notably, as far as Christchurch is concerned, in regard to tramway fares, while lighting is a matter on which the Government shows no disposition to help in the downward movement, and the miners, on their part, help to keep both fuel and lighting costs at an undue level. In regard to all of these matters the Court has a very unenviable task before it, but if it handles them as well in the future as it has done in the past, the public will have little cause to complain.