TRADES AND LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 40, 16 February 1929, Page 19

TRADES AND LABOUR NOTES.

(By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.)

UlflON MEETINGS FOR THK WEEK,

Monday, February IS—Hairdressers, Furniture Trades. ffneadar, February 19—Plumbers. Wednesday, February 20—Auckland carpenters, Onebunga Carpenter*.

LOCAL DOINGS. The New Zealand Storemen and Peckers' Industrial Union of Workers lias filed an industrial dispute, and a Council of Conciliation has been set up for the hearing at Christchurch on February 27. The last award expired in July last, and the claims for the new award embody several new features. This can hardly be called a Dominion dispute, inasmuch aa Marlborough and the West Coast of the South Island hare not yet been included, but it is a dispute of considerable magnitude, for the districts concerned include the Northern, Taranaki, Wellington, Canterbury, Otago and Southland. Mr. W. H. Hagger is the Conciliation Commissioner, Mr. W. E. Prime appears for the employers, and Mr. W. Miller (Auckland), secretary of the federation, will conduct on behalf of the workers.

The Arbitration Court opens its autumn session in Auckland on March 11, after an absence of three months. Work has piled up during the time the president, Mr. Justice Frazer, was temporarily transferred to Supreme Court work, and there are several industrial disputes to be heard, a number of compensation cases to be disposed of, besides the usual crop of apprenticeship problems to be set right, so that this session promises to be rather a busy one. This month the local unions are busy recording their selection for the workers' representative and the deputy representative respectively on the Arbitration Court for the next three years. There is competition this year for both positions, the candidates being: Messrs. J. N. Easdale (Nelson), and A. I*. Monteith (Wellington) for representative, Mr. Monteith being the sitting member, and Messrs. F. D. Corn well (Wellington), J. Purtell (Auckland), W. S. Sill (Auckland), present deputy, and W. B. Thomson (Nelson) for deputy representative. The actual appointment is made by the Governor-in-CouncU, after nominations have been voted on by the unions. Each anion with not mors than fifty members will have one vote, and each union having more than fifty members one vote for each complete fifty of its membra, with a maximum of five votes. The votes have to be in not later than noon on March 6. So far the feeling in Auckland circles is that the sitting members (Messrs. Monteith and Sill) will he returned. The same ticket Is also favoured in Canterbury and Otago-Southland, while Wellington will be strong for Monteith and Cornwell. What a difference in the voting power now to what obtained in the old days, when each union had one vote for eaah ten members, and the railway servants planked down 175 votes in one lot for its chosen candidate.

The Auckland Timberworkers* Union had a busy general meeting last week. This is one of the unions that has suffered much by unemployment during the past year, owing to the shutting down of many of the country mills. Amongst the mill delegates* reports there were two items that showed that all the mill owners do not think only of profits for themselves. One delegate stated that "his firm had divided £100 amongst the employees as a Christmas bos," while another reported "that the management had presented each worker with a week's wages on his return to work after the Christmas holidays."

RUSSIA TO-DAY. "Evolution in social affairs is a ticklish thing," remarks the editor of the Australian "Worker." It can be accelerated to a certain degree, but yon have to be mighty carer Jul bow yon do it. Hurry it up too much and the evolutionary process will slump into reaction. That is what appears to be happening in Russia. The revolution in that country was evolution catching up arrears. Too long restrained, it broke its bonds, burst like a furious tempest on the regime of the Czar, and swept it away in a night of terror.

Then the Bolshevists, getting busy, pushed evolution to the other extreme. , Feudalism must be replaced by Communism. The Co-operative Commonwealth must be established forthwith— by bayonets and bludgeons, if necessary. An aristocratic dictatorship must be succeeded by a proletarian dictatorship.

It looks now as if evolution, thus unduly speeded up, is going to turn assty and slide backward.

In his new book, "The Real Situation in Russia," Leon Trotsky saya that a new middle class is being formed out of the prosperous peasant propristors whom the Soviet set up When it dispossessed the landlords. And he rightly points out that all through history such a class has ruined revolutions and restored to power the reactionary forees.

Twenty-five million small peasant proprietors," writes Trotsky, "form the nucleus of the new capitalistic movement in Russia. But I rather fancy that destiny means evolution to play a big part in bringing to pass the Socialistic era. And if you get trying to make evolution work too quickly, as the Bolshevists ace doing, there'll be trouble, depend upon it. LABOUR BANKS Hf THE UNITED STATES.

An admonition for conservatism in connection with Labour banks is contained in the annual report of the Executive- Council of the American Federation of Labour. "For several years wo have called attention to Labour banking as a development of the Labour movement to be most carefully watched and safeguarded," warns the council. "A bank is one of the most sensitive of economic agencies. Unions engaging in banking enterprises should assure themselves by every precaution possible of the competency and dependability of their technical advisers. They should avail themselves of all the supervision and counsel obtainable through State banking authorities and the .federal reserve system. Such precautions meet with corresponding reward in public eon. fldenee and the safety of the bank iteelf. "A number of Labour hanks are developing sound and wise policies and are a credit to our Labour movement. Labour banking, however, is as yet in the experimental stage, and should be accordingly safeguarded, and we utge greatest caution upon all those connected with them. Our action is based upon our realisation of the close connection between these banks and the Labour ■lavement."