NEWS AND VIEWS
Maoriland Worker, Volume 7, Issue 255, 12 January 1916, Page 1
About this newspaper
NEWS AND VIEWS
Items of Interest for the Working Glass
Thirteen persons lost their lives and 2t Were injured in a factory fire in Brooklyn on November 6.. The building had been condemned and safety measures by law aro alleged to havo been neglected. c * * Queensland Government has made a judge of Tim O'Sullivan (Attorney-General in tho late Denham Gov.) There's ; something to be explained away when, having told the electors that your opponent isn't fit'to be trusted to make!
the laws, you proceed to make a judge of him so thab he can interpret the laws that you make. •> * * a "The famous Socialist, Dr. Lovegren, a member of the Swedish Parliament, describes the removal;from Florence, Italy, which he witnessed, of 200 Italian Socialists," say the Overseas New,s Agency, in f Berlin dispatch. "These Socialists, who wore iinifonns of the army or navy, had' refused to join the army and were transported to Arezzo in order to be shot." This report has not been confirmed from any other source. —American Socialist. * * •* ■ An Illinois postal employee recently expressed the opinion that President Wilson was too ardent in his courtship and should adopt a policy of watchful waiting. The postmaster regarded the utterance as an act of "lese majeste," and promptly sacked the "offender." It seems the postmaster wanted to lift bis own brother into the job. However, as soon as
President Wilson's attention was called to the dismissal, he reinstated the victim. ! -::• (S -if Beii Turner, president' of the British Toxtile Workers' Union, had this to soy recently;- "The chairmen of the Yorkshire) munitions tribunals are chieffy lawyers, so that on the committee of three there will be a lawyer as chairman, a manufacturer, and a representative, and a lawyer secretary. It is nearly three to
J one- against the worker to start with." Yet some people wonder what the British workmen has to complain about, as tho Munitions Act treats him so fairly!—B.C. "Federationist." * # * , A British paper ,says that just before the war the signs of coming industrial ainrest towards the, end of 1914 were undoubted and persistent. The armies of Labour were apparently being mobilised for sonic serious Armageddon. When the annual statement on English trade unions, as they were reported to the end of 1912, came to be issued by the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies it was found that great increases of membership were tho raj© among tho working-class associations. Over a quarter of a million fresh members had added their n-ames to the union books, and in 1913 the 683 societies claimed , a total membership of 2,597)772. In '1903, on the other hand, there were 742 unions, but they only admitted a total membership of 1,573,375, so thab quite evidently tho tendency during these intervening years has been to combine a bigger membership in a smaller number of societies. "A British officer describes the slaughter inflicted on the Bulgarians as indescribable."—"Sydney Morning Herald."
