TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 67, 18 March 1908, Page 8

TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

—— _ ~ (By Industrial Tramps (Secretaries of the various Unions are requested to forward copies of their Cg£o_ engagements tc "Industrial Tramp," "Star" Office, and a list of Union Meetings, will be furnished at tli» head o£ thli column for each wee-.> UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. This Evening. March IS — Trades and Labour Council. Thursday, March 19 — Tramways Union Committee. Tuesday, March 24 — Plumbers. Wednesday, March 25 — 'Wateivide Workers: Trades and Labour Council (Special Meetingj. The Trades and Labour Council meeting this evening, will prove of rather more than usual interest to the delegates, and also to any members of unions who may attend, and to whom a cordial invitation is extended, to hear an address from the Rev. K. A. Robinson, of Onehunga, upon the Church and Labour. Mr. Robinson some weeks ago extended an earnest invitation to the members of the Council to hear a course of sermons from him at his church at Onehunga. The invitation was accepted by some of the delegate?, and the result is that Mr. Robinson has consented to address tho Council as a body this evening. It is not often that we find a cleric leaving his own building to address a labour body, and the number who have done this in Auckland during the last 20 years can be comfortably enumerated upon the fingers of one hand (and then lave fingers to spare). As a rule all ministers consider that they have a message to deliver to the masses, but it is more convenient and safer to deliver that message from the confines of their own pulpit, where there is no risk of contradiction from the persons preached at. ■Some of the Church Synods, or conferences, spare a little of their time once a ' year, in discussing the relationship whicn j exists, or rather, to be quite correct, does ] not exist, between the Church and Lab- j our; and hence we see the men's mass j meeting which is held every year in the i Choral Hall tinder the auspices of the Ang.'ican Synod, and which last year was addressed by Mr. Ben Tillett, with others, i The ex-President of the Methodist Confer- I ence, the- Rev. W. Skfele, a week Or two ago, gave a masterly and statesmanlike utterance on the same subject, in bis re- ] -tiring address tc the assembled conference ' delegates, but the truths expressed by ■ Mr. Slade have since been partially obsoured by a more vital question that is ; agitating the minds of the Methodist j body, viz., whether a Methodist minister is better or worse paid tor bis services j than his confreres in other connections..! By the time this matter has been settlea,' the relationship that should exist ~a-1 tween the Church and Labour will have been forgotten until another conference comes round, when the subject will be commenced de novo.The Letterpress Machinists' Unions' have been in correspondence for some ' time past on the desirability oE entering i into a Machinists' Federation, and the Wellington Union was asked to draft a set of rules, and a constitution for the other-unions to consider. This has been done, and a special meeting of the Auckland Letterpress Machinists' Union will consider and adopt (if acceptable) the constitution and. rules-sent up by the I Wellington Union. Young Australia is precocious. The boys employed at the brass foundry -f John Danks and Son Proprietory, Ltd., at | Blackt'riars, Sydney, were paid for their I first year 5/ a week; those in their second year S/r and those in their third year 10/. Last month they asked that these amounts be increased to S/, 10/ and 12/b respectively, and on the manager refusing to comply, the boys, 31 in numbeT, refused to work. The manager said that be elid not feel at all inclined to comply with their request for higher wages. The boys then held a meeting in the Trades Hall, and decided to form themselves into a union. The new union will work under the auspices of the Brassmoulders' Union. A deputation from the Council was appointed to wait on the employers and the dispute was since settled in favour of Young Australia. It is always gratifying to hear of the success of Aucklanders abroad, and it is with pleasure that we record the fact that during -the recent troublous times in San Francisco, when Mayor Schmitz and his Board of Supervisors were removed from office, and Mayor Taylor (his successor) was given sole power to select eighteen supervisors to govern the city, the latter offered a position on the Board to Mr. W. J. French, an old Auckland •boy, but now a naturalised citizen of thct United States, residing in Oakland, a suburb of San Francisco. Mr. French, bowever. was debarred from accepting the position because of his non-residence in San Francisco, the charter of the city I requiring a continuous residence of five years before such an appointment can be > made. Mr. French, who is a son of Mr. j Robert French, of this city, will be remembered by Aucklard printers, having I served his apprenticeship at the " Star " j oifice, and during his residence in San Francisco and the cities " across the Bay" he has taken a very prominent and sue- \ cessful part in industrial affairs. Hisj opinions upon the various labour prot> Terns of the.day are such as command tne respect and confidence of his fellow-union- . ists, as proof of which he has on different occasions been elected to the Presi- ! dency of both the San Francisco Labour Council and the Typographical Union. At j present Air. French is secretary-treasurer . of the latter organisation. I Premier Kidston, of Queensland, has made a good start by cancelling the commissions of the horde of J.P.'s. There were 330 appointed by his predecessor Philp, just before the elections, for postal voting purposes. It is also said that he . intends to repudiate other of Philp'3 acts. He is in a parlous position, ana, ' like the old proverb, he can say, "How happy could 1 be with one, were t'other dear t-harmer away." The strength of the partie-- is about equal, being Government i.Kidstonites) 24; Opposition (Philpites) 22; and Labourites 20. Apropos of matters in Queensland, 1 received a letter from a member ol the Auckland Tramways Union, last mail, who has gone back to pay a visit to his beloved Banana-State. He arrived Home on March 3rd, and states that he 'never saw the country looking so well all over; it is now raining hard, there is any amount of work; can't go wrong. There is every hope of rouseabouts in the sheds .getting £-2 per week and found; the Labour Government are moving quick they are going for an eight-hour day for lhe farmers, which is badly needed; they are also bringing in a good wage for stationwork, and there is every promise ~ t7 f u - y . ear - * think our Queensland can hold its own wit* the wide, wide world. It is refreshing to find such opfamwa displayed by a young Queeni

Our late visitor, Mr. Keir .Hardie, MJf., could _erther rea-d- nor write when lie was twelve years of age, and taught himself how to read by trying to roughly learn the meaning of printed notices in the shop windows. When lie had acquired a little proficiency in reading he learned to -write, and then followed an 0 acquaintance with shorthand, which he J practised in the coalpit by blacking a white stone with smoke from his lamp, _ and using it as a tablet, upon which he scratched the symbols with a pin. At twenty-two he left the mine and became secretary of a miners' union, nnd two years later he sub-edited a local paper 1 at Cummoek, where he lives at present. John Mitchell, the most prominent leader of the United Mine Workers' Association of America, has happily recovered " from his serious illness. Mitchell has been called the Lincoln of Labour. He is described as a short, square-jawed . young man, with is slouch hat pulled • down over his dark-brown face, and a . hard look about his firm-set lips At thirj j teen he worked on a farm, but later he I j drifted into the coal mines, and joined 5 ! the Knights of Labour in ISB4, when he . was but sixteen years of age. Thereafter _! he became the greatest labour leader in , ' the United States. , When the item referring to currants i came on for consideration, in considerI ing the tariff last Wednesday, Senator . LFiridley moved that it be postponed un- . til "the end of the schedule had been reached. This was taken to indicate that if the growers were not prepared to give fair wages to pickers and others, they (the growers) would receive little consideration when the duties on imported fruits were being fixed. Senator W. Russell went so far as to say that if the workers were not to receive, a share iof the benefits of protection, 3d. per lb. j was too big a duty on currants. On Wednesday night representatives lof the employers and employees came together, when the following resolution was agreed to: — "Resolved, after a. conference with the executive of the Workers' Union and the executive, of the Employers' Federation, to agree to pay the schedule rate !of wages of the Workers' Union for the ! 1908 season, on the understanding that i this federation and the Workers' Union j immediately prepare a case for arbitration, and that arbitration be proceeded -'■•ith forthwith; and, further, that this I executive pledge themselves with the j Workers' Union to use their best endea-. j yours to have the whole of the fruit mii dustry of the Commonwealth brought j under the provisions of the Excise Act." : News comes from Finland that on OcI tober 16 the State Legislature, passed j the Bakers Bill, which makes eight hours l a legal day's work in all bakeries through- ' out Finland. The same biil provides that i nightwork in bakeries be prohibited. j Mr Keir Hardie is formulating a j-scheme- for an Imperial Conference of •j Labour to be held in London concurrently with the Colonial Conference, which lis to meet every few years. Labour will , ha-v-e to face many Imperial problems, and it must have a recognised common point of view on such subjects. The mor|al effect of such a conference will be, he ; hopes, to steady the schemes of the Im- '-, perial jingoes, and have an educative ef- ! feet on the Labour movement. —"Labour Call." At the annual meeting in connection with the Chalmers House for Young Women in Edinburgh, Lady Steel, in moving the adoption of the report, said the object of the institution—to provide for workj ing girls the comforts and pleasures of j a home at a rate within their means— was a most laudable one. It was, she thought, simply monstrous that girls I from nineteen to twenty-three years of j age, should receive weekly wages varyI ing from 3/, 3/G, 0/, 7/, to 9/, and "it was all the: more so when they thought that a man on a Saturday afternoon would pay a boy of from ten to twelve a sum of 3/ or 4/ for merely carrying his golf clubs. She could not understand how a man with any conscience could offer a girl 3/ or 4/ for a week's work. They ought to have a black list for employers who paid girls at such a rate so that they might be held up to scorn. Wages under 10/ were not, in her opinion living wage 3. It was, however, but a part of a pernicious system that work was not paid for according to its value, but according to the sex of the worker. She was sure if working girls were paid respectable wages that Home would bs entirely self-supporting and would not require to rely on charity.