THE LIVING WAGE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2111, 6 April 1920, Page 3

THE LIVING WAGE.

KAUAVAVAIKN’S PROTEST. A motion passed at the last meeting of the Thorndon branch of the Amalgamated Society of Hallway Servants traverses the whole problem of wages ,and the standard of living to bo aimed at by labour. It reads as follows;- — “That this branch of the A.S.R.S. protests against the widcspi end belief that wages should, be fixed on a cost-of-living basis, and asserts that the idea is pernicious and intolerable, as it means putting progress in chains and liberty in fetters, it means fixing a standard of liberty and a standard of living which must remain fixed, and as workers we cannot accept that proposition. We demand a progressively advancing standard of life, and have an abiding faith in a better future for ail mankind. Wc discard and denounce a system of fixing wages solely on the basis of the family budgets and brcad-and-bnUcr bills, and emphatically maintain that workers have a right not only to a living, hut modem society must provide more than is under,-tood I ft- the term, 'a living.’ Jf must concede to all workers a fairer reward for their contribution to society, a contribution without which a progressing civilisation is impossible. Labour understands fully that powerful interests to-day are determined to achieve reaction in industry if possible; they seek to disband or cripple tlio organisations of the workers, to lower the standard of living, a.nd to keep from restriction their power to manipulate and fix prices. Labour must be, and is, militant in the struggle to combat those sinister influences and tendencies; it • will not permit a reduction in the standard of living, nor will it consent to reaction towards automatic control.”