Captain TERRELLasked the Minister of Labour the nature of the reductions in wages which have been accepted by any sections of British workmen with the object of lowering prices and stimulating employment?
§ Dr. MACNAMARAIt is not practicable to state in detail in what cases reductions in wages have been agreed upon specifically for the purposes indicated by my hon. and gallant Friend. I may point486W out that the reductions of wages which are taking place can be divided broadly into certain categories. In one group, of which the railway services, the Civil Service, and the woollen and worsted industry are examples, wages are regulated in accordance with fluctuations in the cost of living. There are other trades where this principle is now being applied for the first time (e.g., hosiery, civil engineering, vehicle building, and others). Another group, in which iron and steel manufacture is the chief industry, regulates wages on a sliding scale according to the ascertained selling price of the products, and as selling prices are falling, automatic reductions of wages are taking place. Other trades are regulating their wages through joint industrial councils, or other representative organisations, or have submitted the matter to arbitration by the Industrial Court. The wages of low-paid and badly organised trades are regulated by statutory Trade Boards, consisting of representatives of employers and workpeople in the trade concerned, together with impartial members appointed by the Ministry. In some of these trades proposals to reduce wages have already been issued by the Board. Details of changes in rates of wages are published in the "Labour Gazette," recent issues of which I am sending to my hon. and gallant Friend.
Captain TERRELLasked the Minister of Labour if he can inform the House what classes of earned incomes have been least affected by war-time increases; and what is the average ratio of increase on remuneration earned by manual and non-manual labour under £600 a year aggregate per individual?
§ Dr. MACNAMARAThe information available on this subject relates almost exclusively to organised groups of "manual wage earners, whose rates of wages are regulated by agreement between the employers' associations and the trade unions concerned. Among these organised workpeople, the increases, since 1914, in weekly rates of wages for full time vary widely in different occupations, ranging from about 100 per cent, in a few cases to over 300 per cent, in a few others. The general average is probably in the neighbourhood of 160 or 170 per cent., but the figures are necessarily very approximate. It should be remem- 487W bered, however, that, owing to the prevalence of unemployment and short time, the increase in actual earnings in most industries is at present considerably less than the increase in full-time rates of wages. Statistics are not available to show the average increase, from 1914 to the present date, in the earned incomes of persons not of the manual labour classes.