NATIONAL DEBT HIGH

Southland Times, Issue 24229, 12 September 1940, Page 8

NATIONAL DEBT HIGH

DOMINION STATISTICS WAGES AND HOURS SINCE 1914 (Special to The Times) WELLINGTON, September 11. At the end of the financial year, March 31, 1889, New Zealand owed on its national debt, a net figure a head of population of £56/14/3; at the end of March 1939, 50 years later, the figure had risen to £lB6/17/-. In that time the population had increased from 652,128 to 1,624,714. This is one of many interesting comparisons given ■ in the annual statistical report issued by the Census and Statistics Department. The figures generally covered by the report deal only with the years up to 1938 and therefore are not new, but there are some details of the following year which throw significant light on’ the development of the country. Of the four cities, Christchurch remains the cheapest in which to live; In 1938, house-rents averaged out at a lower figure than Wellington, Dunedin or Auckland; the fuel and light index numbers were higher than in Wellington or Dunedin, but when compared with 1914, 20/- would go further in Christchurch in 1938 than in Wellington. Dunedin or Auckland, Dunedin reaching the costliest figure. In 1914, the average minimum weekly wage rate of a quarryman (to select one trade from a list of more than 100) was 52/8; in 1939 the rate was 94/2. A journeyman baker received 55/- a week in 1914; in 1939 he received 115/-. For other trades the figures are: butcher (first shopman) 72/6 to 123/2 in 1939; slaughterman, from 27/6 for 100 sheep to 45/-; spinners in woollen mills, 51/— to 103/4; general farm hands, 26/4 to 45/-.

HOURS OF WORK

In 1914 hotel workers averaged, a full week, 65 hours of work; in 1939, the average was 40. Restaurant workers in 1914 worked 61J hours and in 1939, 44; waterside workers worked 44 in 1914, and now average 40, while butchers’ shopmen have dropped from 56 to 44. In 1938-39, 29,809,454 paid for admission to cinema theatres in New Zealand, revenue from admissions reaching a total of £1,893,611 The total expenditure over all theatres - amounted to £1,685,281. This included film-hire and salaries and wages. In 1888 the deaths in New Zealand, of children under one year, per 1000 live births, numbered 70.68. In 50 years, to 1938, the figure had been reduced to 35.63. But the rate of live births per 1000 of mean population fell from 3L22 in 1888 to 17.93 in 1938. This represented a. slight increase on the six previous years, but against that-the death rate per 1000 of mean population in 1938 was well above that for the last. 18 years. . By the end of 1938 there were more university students,■■‘excluding those in agricultural colleges, than in any. year in the ,history of the Dominion, In,lBBB the figure was 662; in 1938 it was 5219. But there- were fewer children in public, schools than in either 1936 or 1937.

Crime appears, from these figures, to be diminishing to a. remarkable degree in New Zealand. In 1938 there were fewer prisoners in gaol (777) than in any year since 1905, and the percentage of prisoners per 1000 of population had reached a new low level, 0.48.