COST OF LIVING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 1034, 15 August 1911, Page 4

COST OF LIVING.

In order to combat the contention that the increased cost of living is due to high wages, the Dunedin General Laborers' Union deals with specific instances in a circular issued to the workers of Ihmedin. "They ■will, tell you," this document says, "mat the increased cost of living is because your wages are high. If this 1 were true it would follow tliot where wages were low, commodities would he cheap. But are they ? Take the dairying industry. In that industry there is no unionthere is no award —and -wages are low; so low, indeed, that little children going to school are employed at it. Yet your butter was increased from Is to* Is 6d per lb. This is not due to wages, hut to monopoly. Take the 'butchering business. The Butchers' Union have had no increase in wages* for nine years, yet the mutton has risen from 3d to od per lb. This is not due to wages. Take the woollen industry. The president of the Chamber of Commerce admitted in his annual report that the value of wool increased on 60 vsheep Iby £3 Is sd. All the shearers got extra for shearing 60 sheep was Is 6d, or one-fortieth, of the improved price. So you can. see that it is not the wages that have made life's necessaries dear."