Omaha daily bee., 1919-11-16
UNION LABOR
IN ENGLAND
REUSED over
LIVING COST
Feeling Is General That Gov
eminent Can and Should
Relieve Existing High
Prices.
Sy FLOYD MACGRIFF.
International News Service Staff
Correspondent.

International News Service Staff
Correspondent.
London, Nov. lS.-The entire
labor union movement of Great
Britain is deeply agitated over the
high cost of living, because success
sive increases in wages have brought
them no real relief. Feeling is gen.
eral that something can be and
should be done by the government
TO bring down high prices. Trade
union leaders point out that
the government is the chief
weapon to cut high prices. The
prohteering act has not resulted in
reducing the cost of living; instead,
it has gone UP. The past month it
las gone up eight per cent.
Frank Hodges, secretary of the
Miners federation, is at the fore
front of the union mems movement
to get some plan working which
will assure all working people some
measure OF relief. His plan is that
excess profits taxes now used to re-
duce the national debt, should be di-
verified and used in making the cost
OF things less.
Hodges maintains that taxation of
excess profits had not forced down
prices; instead, it has kept them up.
Labor Seeks Solution.
"As these profits are made cut of
the industry" says Hodges, "and
out of unwarrantable increase III
prices to the community. those
profits should be taken universally
from all people who made them
and utilized in the direction of bring
ing down prices"
The whole matter will be gone
into thoroughly at the special ses-
sion of the trades union congress.
The labor union itself will endeavor
to find solution of the high prices
problem and the solution found will
be pressed upon the government.
Northcliff's Evening News has
this to say of Britain's New poor,
the silent sufferers.
'In Russia the bolsheviks have
endeavored to rid themselves of the
middle class by means of wholesale
murder. 1t almost looks as If we
were going to achieve the same end
in this country by means of high
prices and high taxation.
Two Glasses of New Poor.
There are two classes of the new
poor i'll special who are suffering
severely-far more severely than
most OF us konw. There are those
who live on pensions or on the inter-
est of their savings, and who find
their income tax up to six shillings
in the pound ($l26 out of every
S420 income). local taxes trembling,
and what is left to them is worth
less than half in 1914. That
makes all the difference between
tolerable comfort and intolerable
penrry.
The second class consists of pro-
fessional people with earned in
comes. These have notsbcen able to
double their charges like manual
workers, and in consequence, their
incomes arc virtually halved.
The new poor constitute quite
a large class. Their wives are often
their own servants and they work
as hard as any factory worker.
These people do not squeal. They
suffer for the most part in silence"
Back Tiny Campaign.
Thus with the new poor and the
manual working classes. along with
the old poor of which England GER
tainly had plenty, there is popular
backing to any campaign designed
to cut the cost of living.
But the government figures show
that the prices of most things are
still climbing.
Food scarcity has eliminated Sat
urday night cheap markets for work.
ingmen's' families; furniture ard
clothes have advanced from 200 to
800 per cent over 1914 prices; rents
are up and hosing accommodations
less; the intended abolition of the
bread subsidy will soon add $780,
100000 annually to the workpeople's
food budget. When prices of other
foods advanced the poor increased
by 60 per cent their consumption of
bread.
The Daily News, after thorough
investigation which showed the pre-
vous estimates of family budgets
were very faulty, pleads for an ex-
haustive inquiry by the government
into the cost of living today, in
order to furnish more satisfactory
data as to the cost of which to base
official calculations" which are in
variably used in negotiating wage
disputes.