CORRESPONDENCE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11648, 28 August 1905, Page 7

CORRESPONDENCE.

Wages and Living at Home and In the Colony.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — The leading article in your issue of last Friday was very severe on a^ work- ' ing man who had written to an English fcyjaper. ■ As regards the statement he made a good suit of clothes cost about £5 and a pair of boots £1, that is correct, and it is easy to account that when he wrote the letter potatoes and, fruit were dear. No doubt he should have stated these prices were abnormal, but his omitting these facts does not, I respectfully say, bring' upon him the "slating" you gave. In the Auckland Weekly News of the 24th isst. is a tabulated return of the average wages earned per annum of several trades, the average rent paid, and the percentage of rent to wages. Under the several headingß of skilled labour engineers stand the highest with .£166 as wages paid, £28 goes in rent, and the percentage of rent to wages is 17. Painters are the lowest," with £99 in wages,, average rent JE2S, percentage of rent to wages 25. Taking the, returns, rents are in ratio to wagesAuckland 28 per cent, . Wellington 33, CEristchurch 25, Dunedin 25, Gisborne 27, - Napier 23, Wanganui .24, and Nelson 26. It must be obvious that when a working man pays 24 per cent of his earning power for shelter he is not in a very rosy position, and taking the difference of wages paid in the same' trade in the colony and at Home, it is a pertinent question to ask:, Is the skilled artisan as well or better off here *s his brother at home? I', have asked' several new arrivals the question of the buying power of wages here a*d at Home/ and all agree that a low estimate is that a sovereign at Home is 'equal to 30s here. The colony offers exceptional advantages to the agricultural immigrant, but it is a debateable question whether it does to the skilled artisan. If a man is in a steady job at Home ho would be wise to stop. In any caße, trades are not divided into so many branches of st trade out here s jjs^at , Home, and the 1 new chum finds employment not so~'readif" ly as one who has learnt his trade out \ here.-I ™> <**"' MSIDEN T.