TRADE AND LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 137, 11 June 1926, Page 13

TRADE AND LABOUR NOTES.

[Br INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.j UXION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. This Evening, June 11 —Curriers. Monday, June 14—Gumworkers. I'aiuters. Tuesday. June 13—Plumbers', storeuien. Wednesday, June 16—Auckland Curyenters, Onehunga Carpenters. Thursday, June 17—Trades it! Labour Council, Related Printing TniileS. THE UNEMPLOYED. The latest figures for the unemployed in Auckland give the number at 1346. which is a big advance on the thousand odd that had registered up to last week, and the number is still on the increase. Critics on the industrial situation express their inability to understand the rapid increase in the number registered during the last three weeks, out the reasonable explanation is. that the Government, after the deputation To the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour last month, have become aiive to the fact that the distress is real, and have promised to expedite works that have been in the air for some time past. Added to this, is the appointment of an official central unemployment committee, a thoroughly representative one. which meets daily to combat the situation. The City Council, the Harbour Board, and other local bodies have striven to meet the situation, and with such prospects of employment for the wiufer. hundreds of workless ones have been emboldened to register thoir need?., instead of continuing to pursue a honeless and apathetic atiitudi. , . Yesterday. wa3 published the cheering news that local bodies will be empowered to obtain loans for necessary works without 'having to obtain the "sanction of tho ratepayers by means of polls: the Orakei roading is to be vigorously pushed, the Government paying as its quota the sum of £117,000; the City Council is to proceed ■with the extension and renovation of its tramlines, while the Harbour Board has launched a half-million harbour scheme to take five years to accomplish. Altogether, the situation is more promising than it appeared a month ago. IMMIGRATION. Although the situation with rejrard to the unemployed is much brighter, immigration as a Government policy is still being pushed, and thousands of prospective citizen? are now afloat, and due to arrive shortly. Moving , about amongst the unemployed, and dealing , with the inquirers for work at the Trades Hall, it is startling to find the number of workless ones who are but recent arrivals in the Dominion. Some of them have been nominated as assisted emigrants by people, whom they have never seen nor heard of. prior to arrival ■here. Sent out here at a cheap rate of passage money, with work and housing "guaranteed"' on arrival, only to find that the guarantees were not worth the paper on 'which they were written. Surely there is need for some strict investigation of the system under which immigrants are lured to the Dominion under false pretences. At a meeting of the executive members of the local trades unions held at the Trades Hall on Tuesday evening, at which the questions of unemployment and immigration were discussed, some very pronounced opinion? were expressed on the action of the Government bringing people into the Dominion on promisee that were incapable of fulfilment. Xot one speaker expressed any opposition to anjim.niigTa.tion scheme that would develop the resources of the country, but it was the "pie-crust" promises of work and accommodation on arrival that merited the most severe condemnation. ' One speaker held that the immigration scheme was fostered by the Government for the purpose of lowering the percentage per head of our national debt: for the more people in the country, the less we would be taxed per head! A LENIN STATUE. Patterned after 'Eartholdi's Statue of Liberty, a colossal stone and bronze statue of Lenin is being erected on a high promontory overlooking Vladivostok Bay, facing "the Pacific. Tt will be the largest monument to the Bolshevist leader in Russia. His right arm will point the way to Soviet Russia as a land of social, political, and industrial equality and liberality. The sculptor is V. V. Kozloff. The statue will be visible at sea for a distance of 50 miles. THE APPRENTICESHIP QUESTION, This question of apprenticeship is becoming one of increasing perplexity. The popular disinclination to learn trades is apparent in many countries. especially where the easy life is fashionable. In Victoria the position is somewhat acute. According to the following table —the last official return—the old custom of one apprentice to three journeymen, or thereabouts, seems to have been completely changed. Minimum Appren- Wage tirps. Earners. Skilled trades 2.5T4- 13.112 Factory trades T.tfW 73.327 Sbop trades 1.278 13.716 Building trades 302 :3,T04 All trades under wa?es boards 9,212 116.913 AMERICAN WAGES AND COST OF LIVING. Mr. A. A. Purcell, who recently visited America ac a fraternal delegate to the annual convention of Labour, included the foDowing interesting paragraph in hie official report: "A point into which I inquired with some care was the question of high wages. Here it was particularly helpful to get the evidence of English workers who had emigrated in the course of the last few years. They all told mc the same story. Though their nominal wages were higher than they would be getting in England, the cost of living was so high that their real wages were about the same; in some cases even less. Special stress was also laid by all my informants on the terrific pace and intensive character of the work. So severe is the strain that men are, on the average, worn out at 40 years of age— whereupon they promptly get the sack; another sidelight on 'benevolence.' "It must 'be remembered, of course, that there are exceptional trades where the wages are extremely high. The chief of these is the building trade, where skilled workers, such as.painters, plasterers and bricklayers command at the present moment in America a high 'scarcit yvalue , : their wages may be as high as £16 or more a week. But this is exceptional." A visitor to Berlin who wished to rai»e money on his wife's jewellery stuffed a string of 75 large pearls and a pearl and sapphire bracelet intohia hip pocket before leaving l his hotel, and then he went for a walk and called on a friead. On arrival at his friend's house he was dismayed to discover that the pearls and the bracelet had slipped through a big hole in his pocket. He had unconsciously strewn £5000 worth of gems amid the slush of Berlin streets. Six pearls in one of his socks was all that remained of bis treasure* _ _ j