BASIC WAGE.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18888, 31 December 1926, Page 15

BASIC WAGE.

NEW SOUTH WALES DECISION. SHOCK FOR LABOUR. ' ~* • (.FROM OUR OWN CORBEBrONDBKT.) SYDNEY, December 22. While there is a proposal lor cbila endowment, which, incidentally, .can only be translated into substantial fact by 'legislation, the decision of the New South Wales Standard of Living Commission not v to increase the basic wage for male employees, has swept the Labour movement like a bombshell. The feeling is that what little popularity the Government at present enjoys, following the recent crises, will now seriously diminish, and that while the Government is in no way responsible for the basic wage remaining as., it w, the decision will inevitably recoil on it. This, incidentally, is the first, fruits of a Commission which is of the Labour Government's own creation. It it gives many decisions like this, Labour will: be inclined to regard the Commission as its Frankenstein. 'lne decision came upon the Trades Hall like an avalanche. Union, secretaries were staggered. They had .been locking forward to, just as the employers had been fearing, an increase of anyr thine frota 7s tolOs in the basic: wage, The effect will probably be that..tlios* unions which dropped the Federal jurisdiction, to .come under that pf.w State will now be anxious to get back, seeing that the Federal wage is. 10s, to lis above that of the State. The child endowment proposal, however, maysoften the lilow--.spmewh.at. TJie ; i»ct remains .that Mr A. B. l'iddingjbn,'•#>.» .chairman of the Commission, is fnqt nenrlv as .vjopular. to-jlav'.in tho._■!>• hour jiinvenient as lie was a day .or-two ago. He seems' likely, at the present moment, to get more .. bricks' than 'bouquets. . '.-■..--' "'"

The Vicious Circle. ' Aruid»c all tho hullabaloo over the basic wage decision, the extraordinary. story of one of the union secretaries got so little space in the papers as ( to pass almost unnoticed. This bfficial was among the negligible minority at the Trades Hall courageous enough to ex r press iho conviction that, even if the workers had been granted ft few extra shillings, they would, on the old principle of the vicious circle, have had to pay it out again in increased priceaof food. In speaking of the effect of increased prices upon workers with families, he-cited the case pf A Sydney tram driver, personal friend Of Jus. The tram driver, he said, has no fewer than 1,7 children. He buys more than half a'dozen loaves of bread a *lay to feed them, and averages about one pair of boots a week to shod them,. ne> buys two pounds of butter ?. day, eked out with dripping. When pennies and halfpennies are put on to meat and butter, . bread and boots, and other commodities and articles, it means * thundering lot to a man with a farp»J like that of my friend, with his 17 children.

Child Endowment. Mingled with consternation in' Labour circles at the basic wage decision is the very pronounced feeling &at if workers with families are to Iwnefit by the child endowment they should be given the benefit now instead of having to cling to the shadowy hope of a child endowment scheme which will -have to be introduced into, and pass Parliament .at a critical period in the life of , the Government, when anything might harden to it. The Treasury is greatly relieved by the decision. It will not now hare to find the additional revenue, totalling more' than £1,000,000, -which an increase in the' basic wage in the public services would have involved.