TRADE AND LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 164, 13 July 1929, Page 19

TRADE AND LABOUR NOTES.

(By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.)

/TBTnON MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. Monday, July 15—Butchers, Hairdressers Furniture Trades; W.E.A. Economics Class. Wednesday, July 17—Plasterers. Thursday, July IS—Alliance of Labour Plumbers' Educational, Boilermakers' Trades Council. Friday, July 19 —Brick workers. JOTTINGS. Mi*. -J. Purtell, union secretary, left by train on Tuesday night.on an organisi»g tour of .South. Auckland, in°the interests of several of his unions. He will visit Huntly, Hamilton, Te Kuiti and Taumarunui, and return at the week-end. For some time past the New Zealand Federated' Sawmillers' Association has been collaborating with the timberworkers unions, with the idea or putting the timber industry on a better footing as regards the tariff now in force. It is more than probable that something will be done to facilitate a discussion on the question by Parliament, and a small committee of the sawmillers has been set up to bring about this result, as the parties concerned are agreed that the position of the New Zealand timber industry is about as bad as it can possibly be. This small committee has arranged for a deputation to approach the Ministers concerned, and Mr. E.. J. , Phelan, secretary of the Auckland Timberworkers' Union, left on Monday evening to attend' the deputation, which was received by the Prime Minister (Sir Joseph Ward) on the following day. The reply of the Prime Miniser was nan'CommittaL

The announcement that the president of the Arbitration Court, Mr. Justice Frazer, has left on a visit to Australia, in the course 'of which he will make inquiries into the working of the Arbitration Courts there, has occasioned a certain amount of interest in labour circles in Auckland. There are one or two critics of the Court who express their opinion that the absence of the president of the Court from the Dominion is the result of the adverse vote passed some weeks ago; but that opinion is not extensively endorsed. The president has held his position for over seven years 3i.ow and I cannot recall any holiday that he has taken away from the sphere in which his work lies. It will probably be found that' the judge has taken a well-earned holiday, which he will turn to good, account by noting the industrial workings in other States. At any rate the .work of the Court is not being held up by any means, for Mr. Justice Blair will fill tiie position of president until Mr. Justice Frazer's return.

Mr. It. F. Barter, engineering trades' secretary, returned from an organising tour yesterday morning, in tlie course of which he. visited Wanganui and Patea in the interests of the branches there. He also addressed meetings in all the larger townships of the Taranaki province. He met with a good' reception in 'every centre, finishing up in Waitara. APPRENTICESHIP MATTERS. 'A Southern Labour writer, discussing the apprenticeship question, writes: "I have seen many boys who, after a couple of years, could make cheap furniture more quickly than the adult tradesman getting four times the. wages that the boys were getting. Obviously it would pay an employer to keep a boy on that work instead. of training him- to the higher, branches of the trade. And I have known employers devoid of all sense of responsibility, and indeed without con-; science, when it came to making money; do this in the case of one apprentice after another. • If they were taken to Court and prosecuted they' escaped punishment at the! expense of the boy by attacking his intelligence and asserting that the boy was incapable of learning the higher branches of the trade. So it came about that no parent who had regard for his boy's future or, his reputation would allow 1 a. ease to be taken against an employer for failure to comply with ths conditions of the apprenticeship documents with regard to the proper teaching of . the boy. So there is no hope of solving our economic problems by tinkering with or repealing our industrial laws, which could only result in the turning out. from our factories of a mass of ' less than half-trained workmen; more . unemployment; lower Wages, and worse conditions." COMMUNISTS ROUTED. •The persistent attempt on the part of the enemies of the Labour party to identify it in the public mind with the Communist party failed badly in the recent British elections, a brilliant Labour success being accompanied by the dismal failure of the Communist candidates. Most of them, indeed, lost their ideposits, and the only Communist member of the Commons lost his seat. ; The Communists themselves have contributed to the education of the public as to the differences that exist between the two parties by their persistent and ferocious attacks on Labour, these attacks coming from the Communists in England and the Russian Soviet Press." So writes Mr. D. G. Sullivan, his weekly column in the "Lyttelton Times, and it indicates the light in which the endeavour of the Communist party to undermine the Labour party is regarded by right thinking Labourites. Out of bBU contests only a meagre 49 came through ■with particulars of the polling, and out of these I notice the following-in which Communists figured to a great disadvantage:—Durham: Seaham seat won by Ramsay Mac Donald with 35,615 votes; the Communist scored 1431. Spen Valley: Sir John Simon, 22,039; Communist, 242. Wallsend: Miss Margaret Bondfield, 20,057 ; 744 was the number secured by the Communist candidate. The only Communist member of the last House of Commons, S. Saklatvala, , votes, lost his seat to W. S. Sanders (Labour), 13,265, and there were two. other candidates who secured 11,833 ana 4531 votes respectively. Were, } remainder of the returns availably to us I have no doubt that similar results ot the collapse of the Revolutionaries would be manifest.