LATEST FROM THE LOBBIES. MASTER AND APPRENTICE.

Evening Post, Volume LII, Issue 93, 10 September 1896, Page 6

LATEST FROM THE LOBBIES. MASTER AND APPRENTICE.

The Labour Bills Committee has not allowed the Masters and Apprentices Bill to pass through its hands unaltered. In the interpretation clause, there is, first of all, an amendment made by which apprentices are defined as young persons apprenticed to any skilled handicraft, the ■word skilled having been inserted by the Committee. The next amendment is to the cub-section providing that no young person shall be apprenticed -until he or she has passed the 3rd Standard at school, this being altered by the substitution of 4th Standard. The definition of young person is changed so that it now means any boy or girl over 14 and under 20 years of agepreviously the Bill made the ages 12 and 18 respectively. In the schedule of the Bill stating the skilled handicrafts to which young persons may be ' apprenticed, upholsterers, French polishers, woodworkers, founders, and millers are added ; while brickmakers, ironfounders, tinworkers, and hairdressers are struck out. The Committee has added to the schedule the provision that in each of the trades mentioned in it there shall be only one apprentice to every four journeymen. The following scale of irages of apprentices is inserted in the Bill:— 10 per cent, of standard ■wage during the first, 20 per cent, the second, 35 per cent, the third, and 50 per cent, during the fourth quarter of the whole term of apprenticeship. THE PEESS ASSOCIATION ENQTTIKT. The Copyright Telegrams Committee to-day completed the examination of Mr. Atack, Manager of the Press Association. It is understood that the witness, though pressed, resolutely refused to give any information as to the scale of entrance fees charged, on the ground that it would he divulging private business with customers. As the Hon. Messrs. G. Jones (Oamaru Mail), H. Feldwick (Southland News). W. Jennings (Auckland), and Major Steward (Ashburton Guardian) have volunteered to give evidence if required, it is unlikely that the Committee's investigations will close this week. TO-NIGHT'S BXTBINESS. The second readings of the Usury Prevention and Government Loans to Local Bodies Act Amendment Bill are down on the Order Paper for discussion to-night.