THE BASIC WAGE.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 August 1922, Page 5

THE BASIC WAGE.

THE POSITION IN AUSTRALIA. AN AMENDMENT DESIRED. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Brisbane. August 18. At the conference of the Australian Employers’ Council, Mr. William Brooks, of Sydney, in an address on the basic wage, said the amount paid in wages throughout the Commonwealth as the direct result of the assumed increase in the cost of maintaining the worker, his wife and dependent children showed an increase between the years 1914 and 1920 of a hundred million sterling per annum. Of this 40 millions was paid to unmarried adult males and a further 12 millions to married adults without children. This proved that not only had the wages of such workers been unwarrantably inflated, but an unwarrantable burden had been placed on the shoulders of men with large families. He urged the need for basing the living wage upon the cost of maintaining a husband and wife only, with an additional provision according to the number of dependent children. The conference adopted resolutions in favor of fixing the basic wage along the above lines instead of the prevailing two-children standard, condemning I the reduction of the 48-hour week to 144 hours, favoring the amendment of [the Arbitration Act restricting its functions to specified industries, and providing for the declaration of the basic i wage for periods not exceeding six