LABOUR IN BRITAIN.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 265, 1 August 1908, Page 5

LABOUR IN BRITAIN.

UNEMPLOYED THE STATUTORY £200,000 VOTE. SPEECH BY MR. BURNS. (by telegraph—tbess association—corrßUDT.) London, July 30. During a discussion in tho House of Commons regarding the administration of tho Local Government Board, several Labour members urged tho removal of the stringent conditions govorniug tho expenditure of the unemployed vote of £200,000, owing to the expectation of an unusually distressing winter. Mr. John Bnrns, President of the Local Government Board, said ho did not share the gloomy forebodings. Ho declared it was impossible to administer tho unemployed vote so as to satisfy sentimentalists, but, subject to the rules of good finance, promised to throw all possible work into the winter months. Ho expected tho Royal Commission on Poor Law to report in November, but if the report proved as revolutionary as. some feared, it would do as much harm as good. INCREASING DEPRESSION. During April, according to the Board of Trade Labour Gazetto, tho number of unemployed on trade union books alone was 43,035, or 7-i per cent, of tho total membership, against 6.0 por cent, at the end of last month, and 3.3 per cent, at the end of April last year. Trade disputes have had nothing to do with the increase, for tho number affected in April was 2392 fewer than in March; 203,000 work-people had their wages lowered in April, while only 1000 had increases. Altogether the sum lost'in wages is 'computed by tho Gazotte at .£IO,GOO a week. One hundred men wero thrown out of work at Cyfarthfa, the great iron-working centre of South Walos, in consequence of _ the dumping of German, Belgian, and American steel. One of the two remaining blast furnaces was "blown out/' and will remain useless, 1 at all events for some time. Depression in trade has caused the reduction of wages in tho rivet and bolt trados by 12} per cent.; the reduction is greatly resented by the operatives.