§ 27. Brigadier-General SURTEESasked The Prime Minister whether, in view of 19 the ever-increasing cost of living and the recurrring demands for higher wages, which materially tend to advance prices, he will issue a Return showing the number of persons in each trade who have benefited by the increase of wages and the extent of such benefit, the number of trades and occupations which have secured no advance, and the number of persons in them who are suffering severely because of high prices and who are dependent on practically pre-War wages; and if he will give the aggregate amount of additional wages paid in each of the organised trades which have been successful in securing advances?
§ Lieut.-Colonel GILMOURI have been asked to reply to this question. Particulars of the changes in rates of wages, so far as reported, are published each month in the "Labour Gazette." The information obtained relates mainly to organised bodies of work-people, and is not sufficiently complete to enable a Return to be prepared in the form suggested. I am sending the hon. Member, however, copies of the "Gazette "for the present month and for May, 1919, and January, 1920, of which the two last-named contain summaries of the statistics available at those dates. I have also arranged that the next issue of the "Gazette" shall contain a general review of the increases in wages in the principal industries from July, 1914, to the present time. With regard to the second part of the question, it is not possible to give information as to the cases, if any, where no increase on pre-War rates has been obtained. No such eases, among manual wage-earners, are known to the Department, but it is possible that some classes of salaried workers (who are not covered by our statistics) have not had increases, and there may even be rare cases among unorganised wage-earners, though the number of the latter must be very small.