A TIME FOR REFLECTION

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 28 October 1920, Page 3

A TIME FOR REFLECTION

COST OF LIVING V. WAGES

[From a Correspondent]

In view of the continual unrest in Labour circles, and what the member for Egmont very shrewdly terms "indiscriminate electioneering talk about hard times the working man is enduring"— talk that is reflected neither in the attendances at the racemeetings, theatres, vaudeville shows," the pictures," and other places of amusement, nor in the Saving Banks deposits, which continue to steadily mount upwards—there is a need for sober thinking on the part of the people to this country generally. The increase in the price of butter, now amounting on the Government fixed price to bd per lb., is being made the basis of further demands for increased wages on the part of men, who, having regard to the service they render the community which must necessarily find the increased payment asked for, are already well paid. The local Trades Hall Council was to have ■considered the matter at a meeting at which delegates from every Labour Union in Wellington were to have been present. It does not yet appear what decision was arrived at, but it is just as well to point out that any increased demands for higher wages on the lines suggested by the watersiders and the tramway men must inevitably react upon the cost of living. The watersiders are said to be formulating demands for an increased payment of 2s 6d per week, while the tramway men will endeavour to obtain another rise of 3d per hour in the minimum wage they now receive.