The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, JUNE 11. 1927. A FUTILE LABOUR MISSION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, JUNE 11. 1927. A FUTILE LABOUR MISSION.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the icrong that needs resistance, For the future t» the distance, And the good that we can da.

The investigations into industrial conditions in the United States conducted by the body of Australian delegates dispatched to America some months ago have not yet been concluded, but there seems to be very little hope ot' securing anything of real value to the Commonwealth from their report. The statements of Mr. H. G. Adam, one of the journalists with the mission, most interesting.

• In the first place, it was arranged that the mission should consist of four representatives of the Australian employers and four representatives of the wage-earners. Trouble began at onee. the Labour extremists desiring to include Mr. Jock Garden, the notorious Communist, and the unions refusing to nominate members on the lines suggested by the Government. The Federal authorities then nominated four delegates from the unions, and the Labour party promptly expelled those delegates who accepted the Government's invitation. The Government then attached to the mission two journalists representing two newspaper syndicates, which paid their expenses, on the understanding that these pressmen were to be members of the mission and receive all possible facilities for securing information.

But long before the mission reached America discord became painfully apparent. Though the Government had decided that it was not desirable for the mission to be controlled by a chairman, the mission decided not only to have a chairman, but to elect a new chairman every week, with the natural result that no one ever had anv permanent authority. Mr. Adam admits that the confusion which resulted was not wholly the missions fault, as "it was sent away in a hurry, without a proper itinerary, without knowing what it had to do, and without any plans." However, the climax of this "very badly mismanaged muddle" was reached when the mission, resenting the fact that reports of their activities had already been published in the Australian papers, passed a resolution excluding the pressmen from all meetings between the delegates and either employers or employees. The journalists attached to the mission naturally resented this action, and Mr. Adam withdrew. But his withdrawal does not seem to have improved matters. Recent cable messages show that, as might have been expected, the party is divided into two distinct political camps, and there is also. disunion among the Labour representatives.

Under these circumstances it is not to be expected that the findings of the mission will be anything like unanimous, or that the report will contain much of real value to the Government or the people of Australia. However, a great deal of very interesting information has been already circulated by the Press representatives attached to the mission, and Mr. Adam has himself reached conclusions by no means complimentary to American industrial conditions. Wagea are high in the United States, but the cost of living is excessive, and the "real wage" of the American worker is generally lower than the Australian rate of pay. Outside of a few favoured industries there .'s no effective Labour organisation, and the workers, being largely at the mercy of their employers, have accepted piece work, bonus systems, and "speeding up" as inevitable features of industrial life. But Mr. Adam maintains, with much force and truth, that such conditions are alien from the Australian workers' conception of well-being.