The Wanganui Herald. (Published Daily.) SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1919. COST OF LIVING.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15973, 15 November 1919, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald. (Published Daily.) SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1919. COST OF LIVING.

A question (to which an affirmative answer was given) was ashed at Mr Yeitch’s Opera House meeting as to whether he favoured the setting rip of a permanent commission to adjust public servants salaries in accordance with the changing cost of living. A note attached to the question drew attention to the position of the moderate-salaried public servant, pointing out that those in receipt of ,£3OO a year and upwards, after having no increase in salary during the war, and no bonus, finally found themselves up against a 33 per cent, increase in the cost of living. This necessitated them dipping into their hardly accumulated savings, and by way of recompense at the end of that time they were given an increase in salary of from 8 to 15 per cent. This, however, was not made retrospective, and further, by the lime they got it, the cost of living had still further jumped to 50 per cent. Most people will agree that it is “rubbing it in” to give a man, after four years’ delay, an 8 to 15 per cent, increase in wage to meet a 50 per cent, increase in living costs. The question opens up many others. In the first place it draws attention to the unfortunate position the £3OO or £4OO a year man, whether public servant or private employee, finds himself in, through having no increase, or at the most very little, added to his wage on account of the war. The lower-paid worker, on the other hand, has mostly had substantial relief, though, at the same time, that relief has been as adequate as it might be. It also draws attention to the fact that we still continue to perpetuate the distinctions in standards of .comfort that exist between the different grades of workers. Many people are ready to acknowledge that • a £3OO a year man finds a hard struggle to bring up and educate a family on that figure. But the same people often consider a manual worker with equal responsibilities well paid at £l5O or £2OO a year. And they feel justified in their conclusion by the undoubtod T fact that many working men can manage fairly well on the smaller snm, even if there are others who can not. Those who do manage, however, only do so by reason of being content with a lesser. standard of living, and particularly of education of their children. No doubt it is an inevitable outcome of our economics, but none the less such distinction is one the country would be better without. Raise the standard of the lower-paid men, and pay them accordingly, and you have no surer means of abolishing “class consciousness” and its attendant evils, and of promoting greater content all round. In the meantime, however, sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. It is hardly fair to raise the wage of one class, and at the same time neglect to do so in the case of another which is paid only a little higher wage. The true way of dealing with the great problem is, of course, to try and bring the cost of living down to the wage level, rather than to raise the wage to the cost of living level. The latter course, if pursued long enough, will undoubtedly result in a “burst up” of some kind or other. Reducing the cost of living to bring it within the reach of wages will, on the other hand, produce

some temporary derangement. But it will be only temporary, and those who will suffer will he few instead of many. Had the Arbitration Court been clothed with the same power to regulate prices dnd living cost as it has had to regulate wages, the present situation would have been much less actite, in this Dominion at least. But stick ah Obviously commonsettee course as here suggested is something that does not seem to find favour with our politicians, though no doubt they ivill learn it some day. Till that day arrives, the best, indeed, the only possible courU, as will as the fairest, is to have some authority with power to review the wages of all classes as often as the cost of living rises beyond their power to meet it.