The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1919 WAGES AND THE COST OF LIVING.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 8, Issue 457, 14 March 1919, Page 2

The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1919 WAGES AND THE COST OF LIVING.

————■— l—— lt We nothing extenuate, nor let down auaht in malice."

♦ Thr War Legislation Act, one of the measures which was literally rushed through Parliament during the last session, contains a clause giving the Arbitration Court authority to vary awards. In accordance with the mandatory provisions of that clause, the Court, as was announced last week, has given a most important decision, which must inevitably have far-reaching effects. In dealing with applications filed by certain Wellington trades unions, the Court interpreted th|fi'<»cent Statute to mean, in vhe absence of any countervailing consideration, which was not shown to exist in any of the cases before the ! Court, wages of workers should, | for the future, be increased in | correspondence with the in- : crease, since the making oh | several awards, in the cost of living. The Court has acted upon this view in the cases under consideration, and has, therefore, granted increases in wages, making them approximately equivalent in purchasing power at the existing time to what they were at the time they were granted. This has been effected by placing all the workers in the trades affected, all of which are skilled trades, on the same footing as to wages as the Court thinks they -hould be. The Court has, therefore, fixed a flat rate of Is per hnur for all these skilled workers, and has granted, in addition thereto, a bonus of 2lid per hour, which may be varied from time to time according to circumstances. This decision, for the moment, affects only the particular unions whose appli- | cations were before the Court, but it may be taken for granted I that the worker? in other indus- | tries will apply for a similar j amendment of the awards under : which tliev are working. This ! protend* a general increase in ! the | lowed, as an inevitable consequence, l>y a further all-round j increase in the cost of living, j Unless the cost of the necessities | of life is reduced as a result of i the cessation of the war, or, : failing this, utiles.- the prico- | controlling authorities—the Go- | vernment and the Boaid of Trade ; are able to devise and enforce ! some methods of preventing fnri ther increases in the price of necessities, the Court will 1 again and again be asked to i amend its awards, and increase wages in conformity with the ever-increasing cost of living.

It is obvious that the continual increase of the wages of organ** ised workers through (ho medium of tho Court, which results in these workers obtaining partial and often temporary relief, largely at the expense of members of the community with fixed incomes and of unorganised workers, who are unable to claim rhe intervention of the Court, cannot continue indefinitely. and that sooner or later many industries may become unprofitable and cease operations, with the result that many workers may be thrown out of employment. Parliament and not the Arbitration Court must be held responsible for the very grave difficulties to which this ill-conceived I and hastily passed law may lead. It is for Parliament, therefore, to repair its blunder as speedily as possible. The workers, that is to say all the workers, irrespective of whether they are organised or not. are entitled to benefit by legislation designed to govern wages in relation to the cost of living. And it is surely a reasonable contention that the wage-payers equally with the wage earners are entitled to be safe-guarded, If the principle of regulating wages in accordance with the cost of living is to become the basis of our industrial system, that system must be made universal in its application, and the resultant adjustments must be subject to variations both up and down. The only way apparently to do that is to take the pre-war minimum wage and the pre-war purchasing power of the sovereign as the standard, and thenceforward to move the wages scale up or down in conformity "*ith the rising or falling cost of living ae disclosed by the figures of tV Government Statistician Whether or not there is in this suggestion the germ of a sound and practical «olution of the cost of living problem, it is beyond question that the partial application of the principle, as embodied in the Court'? interpretation of the law, is economically unsound and highly dangerous.