TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 207, 30 August 1905, Page 10

TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

■ (By Industrial Tramp.) The building trade is still very dull, and there does not seem any probability of it reviving for some time to come. Tha furniture-making trade is very slack just now; most of the factories are working half-time only. Mr. F. W. Phillips, general secretary of the North Auckland Timber Workers' Industrial Union, left for Aratapu on Saturday last. For the previous two weeks he had been making a tour of inspection of the various sawmills in the Thames and Coromandel districts. He reports things generally as very good in the Mercury Bay district. Iron-moulding and engineering is still rather dull, and a fairly large number of men are unemployed. Tailors and tailoresses are fairly busy, and seem likely to remain so for some time to come. The sawmilling industry holds good, in both town and country districts. The builders and architects are still at loggerheads, and from present indication there doe. not seem any likelihood of them coming to an agreement. This is making the building trade in all branches very bad. The Sports and Art Union tickets for the Labour Day demonstration are going off very well, and the function promises to be a very successful affair. The ship, yacht, and boat building trade is fairly good this week, and in the course of a few months promises to be brisk. The building trade in the South in- all branches is still busy, and good tradesmen find work readily. The unskilled labour market is not so strained this week as it has been for some time past, there being very few good bricklayers' labourers unemployed. There seems to be a great scarcity of good bricklayers in Dunedin just now. House painters and decorators are slack. The boot and sboe trade in Auckland is fair, although a number of men are unemployed. The boot and shoe trad? in Wellington is still good, few good men, if any, being unemployedMr. A Rosser, one of our leading Labour leaders, intends to contest City Central seat at the coming election. A woman, who was plaintiff in an action in a London court the other day, said she earned her living by lending out silk skirts, hats, and feathers to working girls for holidays. Most of the Auckland union, are very busy at the present time getting the exhibits ready for Labour Day. In Victoria last year the factories numbered 4203, being an increase of 57 on the previous year, and 50,554 males and 25,733 females were employed therein—increases of 1120 and 1930 respectively.

Just over the N.S.W. horder at Glen Innes, a blacksmith was mulcted for damag.s totalling £49 ss, for cancelling and destroying the indenture of his apprentice, and wrongfully dismissing him. The apprentice's father was the plaintiff. In answer to a deputation of bosses who wanted the union label provision emitted from the Trades Marks Bill (says the "Worker") Federal AttorneyGeneral Isaacs said that he thought that the fear 3 expressed by the deputation were without foundation. Union workmen were surely entitled, with the consent of the employer, to indicate the goods they had made. A deputation from the Wellington Trades Council waited upon the Secretary of the Labour Department (Mr. Edward Tregear), and pointed out to him that the notes on tbe condition of trade published in each month's issue of the Labour Journal were not a true indication of the state of trade from the workers' point of view. A more careful and accurate system of reporting was urged upon the Secretary. Mr. Tregear promised to forward a circular letter to all -unions requesting them to furnish bim with monthly reports of the state of their respective trades. This was tbe substance of the deputation's report to the mfi-ting of the Trades CounAt the meeting of the committee of tbe Australian Women's National League, Janet Lady Clarke presiding, a letto was received from the secretary cf the Anti-Sweating League, Mr. S. Mauser MP., asking the committee to ]oin in an inquiry into the alleged sweating of women clerks. The committee agreed to comply with the request of the AntiSweating League, and the secretary was instructed to write to Mr. Mauger that three delegates to serve on an inquiry committee would be appointed. The committee considered that in order to carry out the investigation effectively .he Anti-Sweating League should furnish its definition of the word "sweating 1 ; that when deemed necessary, evidence should be given on oath, and that the result o, the investigation should be handed to the press. Within these lines the committee it was stated, would gladly cooperative with the Anti-Sweating League.