LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 65, 17 March 1934, Page 13

LABOUR NOTES.

UNION ACTIVITIES. (By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.) UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. Monday, March 10.—Central Branch of the Labour Pnrty. Tuesday, March 20.—Chemical Manure Workers* Annual (Otahuhu). Plumbers (annual). WORKERS' HOMES VENTURE. i The Auckland City Council is not the only City Council in the Dominion that has some anxiety over its workers' dwellings. A ijeport presented to the Christchurch City Council shows that the arrears of rates and instalments on workers' dwellings erected by the City Council are of such magnitude as to make it necessary to strike a rate next year to provide for the deficiency. Most of the workers' dwellings concerned were built with money advanced by the City Council before 1927 or 1928. An earlier loan was used by the council to erect houses for itself, but later advances not exceeding £750 were made to approved workers, the council retaining mortgages over the completed dwellings. Not only are the rates overdue on some of these dwellings, but also the instalments of interest and sinking fund on the mort-

gages. Mr. J. K. Archer, chairman of the housing and health committee of the City Council, says that in the case of 146 houses the council has made advances, and the amount of money now due for arrears of instalments and rates has reached a sum that is probably larger proportionately than that in the case of private owners or even, perhaps, the State Advances Department. "We are having no trouble whatever with occupants of the workers' dwellings who are in employment," he states. "These are keeping up their instalments as well as payment of rates. We have some cases of sickness in the family, and though we realise even in regard to these that we are not a charitable institution, we have to act in a spirit of humanity. Our chief problem is unemployment, with its low wages and generally low spending power. Because of this 17 houses have been taken over from their original owners by the council, and 15 of these are let to tenants who are paying their rent. Unfortunately, as a rule when houses are taken over a considerable sum of money has to be spent in repairs." Mr. Archer adds that "The public may rest assured that everything is being done to safeguard its interests, while, of course, the council is trying not to indulge in a severity of which, I am sure, our people as a whole would not approve."

LABOUR ADVANCE. An interesting topic is the capture of ] the London County Council by Labour on March 8 by which the control of the L.C.C. will be taken over by the party for the first time. There were 118 contested seats and the candidates comprised 108 Municipal Reformers, 24 Liberals and 160 Labour supporters. There were a number of uncontested returns, and the final result is: Municipal Reformers 55, Labour 69. The old council was comprised of: Municipal Reformers 83, Labour 35, and Liberals

6. The term of office is for three years. This election's gains and losses respectively are: Labour 29 and 0, Municipal Reformers 0 and 25, Liberals 0 and 4. Labour has indicated that a large-scale programme of housing and slum ance will engage the early attention of the new council. In addition to the 124 elected members, 20 aldermen are elected by councillors, and a chairman who may be an alderman or a councillor, or may be chosen outside the ranks of either. It is nothing new for a labour majority to be returned to the councils of various London boroughs. That of Poplar is an old illustration of this but to capture the County Council, which has been under the domination of the Municipal Keform partv long before the establishing of the official Labour party, is something of a triumph for the workers. The success or otherwise of Labour in the metropolis of the world means mucli to the prestige of the party in New Zea- | land. It is regarded as a political barometer and presages a similar condition J in the Dominion beyond the seas, and this latest victory will be used in the extensive campaign which has been launched by Mr. M. J. Savage, M.P., Leader of the Opposition and is now under way in the South. This campaign will continue with more or less intensity until the general elections and municipal elections of 1935. But for the lengthening of its own life by 12 months by Parliament, the first mentioned struggle would have eventuated in December next.

ROOSEVELT PLAN. Referring to the financial outlook m its broader aspects, Mr. F. A. Szarvasy, at a meeting of the Anglo-French Bankin<* Corporation, made comment on what he° described as President Roosevelt's great excursion into the uncharted waters of State Socialism. The unvarnished fact, ho said, remained that the "codes" in raising wages, reducing hours of work, and establishing many hundreds of trade unions, had effectively curtailed the profits of equity holders, and that by the progressive devaluation of the dollai the purchasing power of the rentier had been severely cut into. In modern language, this process was callcd the "redistribution of wealth," and one had to admit it sounded less brutal than the old-fashioned expression, "Take away from the Haves and give to the HaveNots." Sometimes the operation took the form of penal taxation, • sometimes the pushing of internal price levels inordinately high by means of tariffs, quotas, and restriction of all kinds, but in almost every case, while some relief was found for the wage-earner and the salaried classes, the rentier invariably suf-1 fered a reduction in purchasing power, and therefore in the standard of living. President Roosevelt's great economic I experiment, Mr. Szarvasy added, lost none of its interest, because it was carried out in isolation from the rest of the world, but the acid test would coine when normal intercourse with other trading centres was attempted. It would then become evident whether the internal price level and cost of production had risen to such an extent as to neutralise the depreciation of the dollar, and whether the millions of unemployed had been reabsorbed into industry. Until then judgment, he considers, should be reserved.

The "& Co." across a cheque signifies "and Company." It is a 6vmbol for the name of any bank or banking company. It is not really essential to the crossing of a cheque, the two lines alone being sufficient,