COST OF LIVING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2242, 22 February 1921, Page 3

COST OF LIVING.

A DROP IN ENGLAND. AUTOMATIC REDUCTION IN WAGES. London, Feb. 20. Official figures dealing with the cost of living show a drop of fourteen points since January. The cost is still 151 per cent, above the pre-war rate, but twenty-five points below the maximum height, reached in November, 1920. Experts predict the decline will continue. It is already effecting automatic reductions in wages, as many trades are working under agreements by which wages rose proportionately with the cost of livin'?.

EMPLOYEES REQUEST A REDUCTION. London, Feb. 19. One hundred and forty employees, representing 95 per cent, of the labour of a Lancashire firm of embossers and finishers, requested a reduction of 10 per cent, in wages, involving the surrender of 2s fid to 15s weekly, expressing the hope (hat the offer would be accepted, as the present high cost of living exists primarily owing to the high cost of production, and also hoping that their example would be followed throughout the country in order to decrease the cost ot living. Ihe company, in accepting the otter, announced that charges for finishing will be reduced 10 per cent., the firm undertaking to give customers the hcjrtfit of the reduet ion.

A number of Birmingham boilermakers have also agreed to a reduel ion of 10 per cent., in order to enable the trade to cope with foreign competition.