STATISTICIAN TO GIVE MORE EVIDENCE ON THE WAGES CLAIM

Wanganui Chronicle, 20 December 1950, Page 3

STATISTICIAN TO GIVE MORE EVIDENCE ON THE WAGES CLAIM

WELLINGTON, Last Night (PA)— The Government Statistician (Mr G. E. F. Wood) will give’ more evidence to the Arbitration Court today on the applications being heard for a general increase in wages. Before the Court rose today Mr Wood handed in for overnight study the information asked for by the Court and advocates last week. The only other witness was Dr. Harold Silverstone, lecturer in mathematics at Otago University, called as a witness by the T.U.C. the day before. He was in the box most of the day under cross-examination by the employers’ advocates, Messrs W. E. Anderson and H. F. Butland, and the Court mainly on technical details of the submissions of the T.U.C. Mr Justice Tyndall pointed out that the T.U.C. application as it stood for an increase of £3 10s a week for all workers would give an increase ot about 212 per cent to some 16-year-old workers, 43 per cent to a carpenter, and as low as 11 per cent to some workers under an agreement. His Honour asked: Would not the married man with three children (a family frequently referred to during the hearing) be getting the poorest deal if the application were granted? Dr. Silverstone said that on a percentage basis that must be so. Increases in Social Security benefits might help him. His Honour asked if bringing this in did not destroy the argument based on the family unit mentioned. If a claim were granted based on a man, wife and three children, would it not, in effect, be distributing the national income on the assumption that 1,200,000 children existed who did not exist? Dr. Silverstone said there appeared to be, from all the economic measures that one might adopt, an unbalance in favour of sections of the community other than wage and salary earners as a whole. Witness stressed that the important thing in his view was to ensure that wage and salary earners had a proper share of the national income.

Southland Cricket Team To Meet Wellington INVERCARGILL, Last Night (PA). —The Southland cricket team to play Wellington on January 11 and 12 at Invercargill has been announced. It is I. Gilbertson, A. Gilbertson, W. Payne, G. Wilson, J. Gill, I. Overton, G. Marshall, C. V. Shirley, J. Hailes, R. Campbell, N. F. McGowan (captain), G. Halligan. F. Fraser was unavailable.