THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1920. BACHELORS AND BONUS.

Wairarapa Age, 14 December 1920, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1920. BACHELORS AND BONUS.

The division of the Arbitration Court ii, regard to bonuses will revive tlic question of whether a differentiation should not be made in the payment of Iho.se with unci without, dependents. A. southern paper, in. discussing this 'aspect of llie question, states that ' before the day of arbitration in New Zealand there was to some degree collective bargaining between trade unions and individual employers, but this did not altogether obviate private understandings between master and man in Hie matter of wages. There v.as still the practice of an employee approaching his "boss" and seeking ' 1o belter himself on the score of his j going to get married or a rapidly ' growing family. But with the coming of arbitration the niatto - has become more ami more ••'.* it must do where both parties are merged in powerful federations of Capital on the one band and Labour on the other. The minimum wage fixed by the Court las become, witli very few exceptions indeed, the maximum wage. But the latest function of the Court—to adjust wages from time to time, so as to make their purchasing power in the matter of necessaries of life something as near a constant factor as may be -bids fair to revive old (.list'metions

aml depart from the principle of equal pay for equal work. Where half a dozen pairs, of boots have to be renewed or replaced in a family the vbonus is much more rapidly mopped up than where only one wearer is concerned. It stands to reason that the unmarried wage-earner, without encumbrances, has been relatively much better oil' than the father of a family through the arbitrary, though necessary, additions to wages. There is no need at iliis juncture to recapitulate the additional annual tax on the industries of the Dominion which the proposed new bonus would involve, nor to go into the point whether this sum would be/ could be, or should be "passed on" to the consumer. The, , question we are now dealing with is the fairness of its distribution. It may be remembered that, last month 'Mr* \V. M. Hughes received from the chairman of the Australian Basic Wage. Commission a memorandum .stating that, as the suggested basic wage of £') 10s a week for all male workers was calculated on a typical family of man, wife, and three children, this would mean that all families with more than three children would suffer privation; that those below three would receive more than a living wage: and that, an unmarried man would get what would support himself, *u wife, and three children. It would further mean that industries would be taxed for the support of 4 50,000'nonexisleut wives and 2,100,000 nonexistent children. It was partly, but not wholly, on this account that Mr. Hughes declared that Australia must, look for some other solution of the economic problem. From what Mr. Justice Stringer said in Wellington on Friday, when argument was being heard on the shearers' application for the cost of living bonus, the Arbitration Court is not li'kcly to differentiate between single and married men. If it did so it might, make the former often ineligible for employment, and that must be avoided at all hazards. l!r. Justice Stringer would throw back or. Parliament the onus of differentiation, which he suggested might fake the form of a tax on bachelors. Out of the proceeds of this tax married men might be subsidised. To give any real relief this tax, we presume, would have to be fairly heavy, and it would certainly be unpopular with unmarried men—though it would possibly be hailed with, great satisfaction by unmarried females. The difficulties of the whole question are most prominent.