TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 116, 16 May 1906, Page 8

TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

(By; ''Industrial Tramp.'')

The ironinoulding industry is a shade tetter than it has been lateiy; there are no members of the local union a-t present signing the vacant book. The furniture trade is brisk, and the men are all fully employed. In consequence of the winter season the coachbuilding trade is slack. The shipbuilding trade is slack at present, although one or two small orders are keeping the men at the Whangaroa yards busy. Mr. H. Banfield, secretary of the Car. penters' Union, reports that the building trade is busy; he has an unsatisfied demand for men. for country jobs. Apropos of the "wave of conciliation" so recently reported as passing ever the northern district, it may be mentioned that the book-binders' dispute is in a fair way of being settled by mutual consent. The only point in dispute ia that of the paper cutters' w&ges, and another conference between the employers and the union has already boen arranged. The Canterbury Trade* and Labour Council, conjointly with the Political Labour League, has decided to take a hand in the election of tht- Christ church Tramway Board next month. The term of offices for three years, and it is the intention of a joint- committeo of the two bodies to run a ticket of their own. The burning questions are the adoption of the merit and demerit system, and the appointment of outsiders to responsible, positions under the board. The Art L'nion Committee of the Canterbury Trades and Labour Council on May 5 presented an interim report, winch stated that the surplus from the art union would be about £230. and eulogised the work done by Mr. J. \Y. Fryer, the secretary. President Roosevelt, in receiving Mr. Sam Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labour recently, said: "I do all in my power for the labouring man. except to do wrong. I •won't do that for him or anyone else." Mr. Justice Chapman has been enjoying a rest from Arbitration Court work by taking the criminal sessions at Gisborne during the past fortnight. With Mr. Justice Williams taking a holiday in the Old Country, aud Sir Robert Stout attending the University celebrations at Melbourne, to say nothing of Judges Cooper and Denniston setting on the Meikle Royal Commission, the Judges have been short-handed, and Judge Chapman, to use an expressive word., has been "commandeered" from Arbitration Court work to fill a gap. The late Trades and Labour Council's Conference, held in Christrhurch, was a truly representative gathering. The Councils were represented as follows: Atlckland, by a sugar-worker and a- carpenter; Hawkc's "Bay, a baker and a painter; Wanganui, a timber-worker and an engine driver: Wellington, a carpenter, wharf labourer, and bootmaker; Nelson, a minpr and a painter; Canterbury, a stonemason, tailors' presser, and a "machinist; Otago, an upholsterer, house painter, and a linotypist. It will thus be seen that the house painters were well represented. The Arbitration Court opens to-mor-row morning, when breaches and compensation cases will be taken as first business. The disputes are not expected to he. reached till some time on Monday, the 21st, the sugarworkers -being the first on the list. Messrs. W. Wallace and A. Rosser, delegates to the late Christchurch Conference, are to give & jeport of the Conference doings at the next Trades and Labour Council meeting, and an interesting evening is expected. One of the Auckland remits met with a short shrift at the hands of the recent Trades and Labour Conference. It was a resolution asking the conference to support the Auckland Council in a resolution to the Government asking that expert advice 'be obtained as to the ad,visab]eness of teaching the Morgan ■■mensuration system in the. Public Schools. The Auckland delegates, as in 'duty bound, moved and seconded the rejmit from their council, but a hardihearted Otago delegate stopped all furfther discussion, and blocked the block system by formally moving- the "previous question." On being put to the meeting question" was declared carried by 13 to 3, and the delegates •went on to consider the next business.

The Auckland Trades and Labour Houncil, at its last meeting, forwarded a resolution to the Premier, advocating the claims of labour to a direct representation on the Harbour Board. 'Tie appointment of 2>br. J. K. Kneen by the Government to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Mr. F. E. Baume. M.H.R., as a member, will bfe calculated to give great satisfaction to the delegates on the Council, as well as to the great mass of workers in Auckland. If ever a man is capable of ascertaining the wants pertaining to the port of it is the burly secretary of the Seamen's Union, and I congratulate him upon his appointment.

During the debate in the Trades and Labour Conference on the advisability of the Education Department adopting a uniform set of school books throughout the colony, such books to be printed by the Government and sold at cost pricf, >I!r. W. H. Hampton, a Wellington delegate, stated that in the Xewtown pchools, in addition to being compelled to procure the ordinary books, the boys have to buy Charles Kingsle3-"s '•'Westward Ho!" and the girls '"Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles.. - ' from which instalments are read. •

Mr. W. Belcher, secretary of the Dune.dh) branch of the Federated Seamen's Union, had something to say anent the seamen and the Arbitration Court at a railway servants' smoke social held in Dunedin on May 5. He declared plainly, '•that the seamen were not going to cllow any sentimental considerations or hide-bound judge-worship to stand between them and their rights." In fact, hs promised that the award would be '•'pretty severely turned inside out before two years were gone." The Certificated Engine Drivers' UnioD lias caused quite a stir in tM.e industrial community dm-ing the past week by a resolution passed at a special meeting to withdraw their dispute from before the Court. The members of the Union conEider that it is far better to save their money and continue to work on under the existing award than to go through the process of calling witnesses, spending aioney, »nd, like the Wellington engine drivers, gain nothing hi the end «. ,s J gy atif y in g to be able to report the saddlenng trade continues brisk end aJI the tradesmen in that line are fully employed. The Boer war. if it did no other goad to the industrial world Brae certainly responsible for giving a ' Brack-needed Slip to this industry, <wbjeh