PRICES MUST BE BASED ON WHAT WORKERS RECEIVE

Wanganui Chronicle, 1 September 1950, Page 5

PRICES MUST BE BASED ON WHAT WORKERS RECEIVE

PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Aug. 30, (P.A.).—Prices must be based upon what is being paid to workers, said the Hon. A. H. Allen (Dunedin) in the Legislative Council today speaking to the second reading of the Minimum Wage Amendment Bill. He referred particularly to reports of negotiations about prices in Britain for New Zealand dairy products, adding that he considered that Britain was not prepared to pay the extra costs which the higher wages had ’loaded on to dairy produce. "The day is coming when our primary producers will have to be subsidised in order to compete on the world markets,” said Mr. Allen. The time had come when the Government must apply itself seriously to the problem of making the pound go further rather than trying to make wages keep on meeting costs.

The Hon. A. P.O’Shea (Wellington) said that the Minimum Wage Bill was very largely a technicality, the contents being academic rather than practical at present. The fact was that nobody was really employed at a minimum rate as far as he knew and it provided the necessary protection for the future for those who did not come immediately under the benefit of the increase granted by the Court of Arbitration. During the afternoon, the Council passed the Hutt Valley Electric Power Board Empowering Bill, the Standards Amendment Bill, the Republic of Ireland Bill, the Republic of India Bill, the Plumbers’ Registration Amendment Bill and the Minimum Wage Amendment Bill. Two bills, Infant’s Amendment and Property Law Amendment, were referred to the Statutes Revision Committee and a second reading was taken on the Medical Research Council Bill and the Tuberculosis Amendment Bill.