WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1919, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

! COST OF LIVING. ' i I RELIEF FOR WORKERS. ■ (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, March 7. Now that the Arbitration Court has definitely taken upon itself under the legislation or last session, the task of adjusting the rate of wages to the cost of living it is likely to be kept extremely busy till normal conditions are restored. The court makes the position in this respect perfectly clear. "Unless," it says, "the cost of the necessaries of life is reduced as a result of the cessation of the war, or failing that, unless the price-controlling authorities, the Covernment and the Board of Trade, are able to devise and enforce some method of preventing further increases in the prices of such necessities, the court will again and again bo asked to amend its awards and increase wages in conformity with the ever-increasing coat of living." This is the prospect with which £he community is confronted at the present moment.

CONSTANT TURMOIL. The industrial disputes that drew this pronouncement from the court have been settled —temporarily, it must be assumed—by fixing rates of pay in accordance with existing prices, but there is no guarantee that these prices will not be substantially increased in the near future, and in that eveut, of course, the intervention of the constituted authority again will be sought. The court has warned disputants that it will not feel disposed to entertain any application for the amendment of an award •unless the conditions affecting the industry have been materially varied over a substantial period of time, but it could scarcely ignore an appeal supported bysuch strong evidence as were those upon which it has just adjudicated. If prices, continue to mount up, indeed, constant industrial turmoil will be inevitable. FIXED INCOMES.

The hard lot of the workers of all grades with fixed incomes is specially mentioned by the court-. The relief given to the organised workers, it points out, is obtained largely at the expense of this class of the community and. the process of bleeding cannot go ou indefinitely. With the purchasing power of the sovereign reduced by nearly' onethird the civil servant or the clerk in. private employment who was receiving £2OO a year before the war is now rei ceiving, in effect, only £135 a year. jThe civil servant is receiving his bonus, i representing perhaps one half of his lost income, and the private clerk may have obtained some assistance from his employer, but there are few cases iu which they have not suffered far more severely than the, artisau and the manual laborer. THE AGE LIMIT.

During the war the regulation which requires civil servants to retire on superannuaiion at the age of sixty-five was not strictly enforced. Presumably there was good reason for its suspension in the fad; that many junior members of the Public Service had gone to the war and that the retirement of older men would have increased the difficulty of keeping the work of the various departments going. But the effect of this war measure has been to block the progress of young men who have earned promotion and who are beginning to kick against the retention of men whose services no longer are necessary. The Government has recognised the justice of the protests that are being made and it is expected there will be a large exo ■ dua of "sixty-fivers" at the end of the current month.