LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 219, 16 September 1939, Page 16

LABOUR NOTES.

Illy INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.)

UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK

Moijflay, September 18. —Furniture Trades, t'uttors and Ivesserj*.

Tuesday, September 19.—Chemical Workers. | Knsrineers. I'cllmoiisers. Wednesday. September 20.—trfjcal Bodies' | Labourers. Onehunga Carpenters. I Thursday. September L'l.—Trades Couucil. | SafUllTs. Hatters. ARBITRATION COURT. Attention is directed to the announcement that the Arbitration Court is opening in Auckland for its first session ,of the \ear on Monday morning next. The list of eases awaiting it is a long one, consisting of 18 industrial disputes, six applications tor interpretation of awards, nine appeals from the decisions of the Arbitration Court's delegate, Mr. J. Gilniour. besides compensation for accidents and miscellaneous applications. Under prt-c-erit conditions at home and abroad it is safe to assume that the Court, in its decisions, will not greatly interfere with existing awards. Parliament has agreed to drop party politics and devote all energies to securing the welfare of the Dominion a* a whole. Not. loner ago the French nation reliirn o d a strong Socialist Government to power. It at once brought in a 40-hour week, but soon after realised that if the trench nation was to keep pace with its neighbours in placing itself on a safe footing for emergencies hours of labour could not continue as in times nf settled pcace. and so the shorter hours, as compared with the unlimited hours worked in Germany, gave place to l< ng and continued work in France, extending in some cases right round the j clock. The result is seen in the fact that when the dreaded day came France entered the war in a state of complete preparedness.

I here conies to my mind an incident that happened just before the declaration of war in 1870 between France and Prussia, when Napoleon 111., Emperor of the French, asked his, Minister for War, Marshal Bazaine, whether the French army wa-» prepaid for war, and he replied: "Yes. sire, down to the last button on the tunic."

In the Dominion the Emergency Regulations Act, passed on Thursday last, ghes power to the existing Government to overriele any Act or regulation now in force by any order or regulation which is required for the security or increased output of the Dominion during the war. Unions demanding increases of pav or -shortening of working hours at the'prefent time would do well to bear in mind the legal maxim: "Statu quo ante helium (In the state things were before the war). When the war is over and stable dcmocraej' is assured, we can then take up the cudgels for better conditions all round, if thought Jit. "WAR AND THE WORKERS." Under this heading, "Unionist" in his Labour column last week, in the Dunedin "Evening Star," writes:— After a long suspense a declaration of war has been made by Britain against Germany, with the reason for which we are all familiar.

At the present time such questions as trade unionism. Labour politics, and other matters of everyday interest have been relegated to the background, while we talk of the war and all its nece«sarv ramifications and possible consequence's for the future. We know it will entail (if it la«ts very long) the sacrifice of thousands of human lives. As one who remembers vividly the last outbreak of war and with a knowledge of its awful consequences, it makes me shudder to think that such a catastrophe has caught the world again. In the hwt war thousands of workers on all side* were killed and maimed to defeat a form of militarism that we all thought was destroyed for all time, but gradually over the past quarter of a century has arisen from the ruins a potential danger to civilisation and the peaceful existence of mankind. I refer to Hitler and Fascism, a creed that could not .be tolerated or agreed to by a liberty-lovins people. - ®

The point I wish to make in this short review of the war situation as we see it from the workers' point of view, js that there was a sharp division of opinion regarding the last war and its causes, resulting in a large number of people refusing to participate in its piosecution and suffering accordingly. To-day the whole of the people are united in the British Empire with the one objective of scotching the man who has set himself up to iead the German people and crush all others who are not prepared to submit to his dictum. The British- nation as a whole is showing a united front, and is glad that the dictators bluff has at last been called, and I do not think we can expect a single impediment from • within in the successful carrying out of our objective.