The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1913. ENGLISH WORKERS AND WAGES.

Waipa Post, Volume VI, Issue 269, 2 December 1913, Page 2

The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1913. ENGLISH WORKERS AND WAGES.

OF much that is important in connection with work and wages comparatively little is heard either here or in the Old Country. For instance, it appears that in Britain wages have lately been rising at a faster rate than the cost of living ; but who has seen any reference to this in the cable messages ? It is said that this satisfactory state of things applies particularly to the mining industry, which in 1912 received 55 per cent of the total amount of the increased wages of that year. The other most important industries, judged by their effect on the aggregate weekly advance of wages, were the textile industries with II per cent of the total, and the engineering trades with 8 per cent of the total. According to official statistics, issued by the Board of Trade, 1,818,240 work people were affected by changes in wages last year. Of these 1,806,444' received net increases amounting to £139,410 per week, and only forty-six sustained decreases, which in the aggregate amounted to but £6 per week. The net result of all the changes was, therefore, an advance of £139,404 per week, and this came on top of a rise of £34,573 per week in 1911. Exclusive of agricultural laborers, seamen, and railway servants, 18 per cent of the population were affected by changes in rates of wages in 19T2, which is considerably above the highest percentage (13.1) of the last nine years, the lowest having been 5.6 in 1901. Of individual industries, again the mining had the highest percentage, no less than 51 per cent of the men employed in or about a colliery receiving higher wages. Moreover, the bulk of these advances were brought about without resort to the use of the strike weapon (says the Mercantile Gazette's London correspondent). No less than 96.6 per cent of the work people had increased wages without stopping work, and only 3.4 had to resort to that expedient to obtain their desires. In 1911 16.3 per cent and in T 909 13.3 per cent of the advances followed on labour strikes. Then higher wages have in many instances been accompanied by reduced hours of working. Changes in the hours of labour affected 105,317 work people, of whom 1013 had their aggregate working time increased, but 104,304 had it reduced, and the net effect of all changes was a reduction of 210,556 hours in weekly work time. During the first eight months of the current year rates of wages have gone up at an even greater rate than in 1912. Up to the end of August the net increase in weekly wages has been greater than the advance in the whole of the previous year,,more than half of the rise being again in the coal mining industry. The total number of work people reported to have had higher wages is 1,543-444. while 3500 have sustained a net reduction. The net effect of all changes this year has been an increase of £145.724 P er week in wages and a reduction of nearly 156,000 working hours per week. Surely this is a very good record for the worker.