NO WAGE REDUCTION

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2951, 20 October 1925, Page 3

NO WAGE REDUCTION

PRIME MINISTER EMPHATIC.

MISREPRESENTATION BY POLITICAL OPPONENTS.

i ; ' Dargaville, October 18. Two recently-made statements that the Government, if returned to power, will bring in wage reductions were emphatically denied by the Prime Minister in a speech last night. One class of statement, which it was flattering to call misrepresen-~-tation,~-was often made prior to elections, said Mr. Coates. Such statements were generally made in ignorance, and without much ■con- / eern whether they were’correct or i.-not. One-made-in Invercargill with- • V in the past two or three days, according to telegrams which he had received, was that the Government, having made two cuts in the Public Service salaries under the Public Expenditure Adjustment Act, 1921, intended to make a third cut, which that Act authorised. To this he would reply that the late Mr. Massey had stated definitely that there would be no third cut. “I have a hazy recollection that legislation was prepared to deal

with the matter/’ said Air. Coates,

“I say definitely now that future reductions in Public Service salaries are unnecessary, and a third reduction will not be made.” . ' The Prime Minister then referred to a speech by Mr. J. A. Lee, M.P., to the effect that the Government intended to reduce wages bv 7s 6d weekly all round in order to pay ad-

ditional allowances to married men with • large families. He had also read an article on the same subject in the “New Zealand Worker” headed “Another 7s 6d a Week Off if Tories Elected. Labour the Only Hope.”

The origin of the agitation, said Mr. Coates, appeared to be in the last annual report of the Department of Labour. There the Undersecretary, Mi*. F. R. Rowley, had quoted a verbatim report by Air. A. B. Piddington, K.C., of Sydney, upon a scheme for making a levy on wages generally, in order to create a fund out of which allowances might be made in respect of children. - > “The Government has never considered, has never thought of, and never will make a reduction of (s 6d. except in times of stress and depression, and after the Arbitration Court and Parliament decide it should be done. The whole charge is based on sand, and falls when you blow that way. There is nothing in it.”

Later in his speech Air. Coates said he realised that a man on a minimum wage could not bring up a family as it should be brought up. The Government earnestly desired to help him, and was considering how it could be accomplished.