TRADE UNION CONFERENCE

Evening Post, Volume LXI, Issue 84, 11 April 1901, Page 6

TRADE UNION CONFERENCE

[BY TELEGRAPH — PRESS ASSOCIATION.] DUNEDIN, This Day. The Trades and Labour Cenference today carried resolutions asking that clause 40 of the Mines Act be amended so as to compel mine-owners to provide travelling rods for workmen as near as consistent to the main entrance to the mine, and that no person, shall be allowed to have charge of the coal face unless he has had not less than two^, .years' previous experience in a coalmine. These and other recommendations are to be forwarded to the Coal Commission. It was also resolved that the Miningi Act be amended in the direction of taking away from workmen the power to appoint two of their number to inspect any mine, and that in Hen thereof the power of appointment be vested in the local industrial unfon of workers ; that the principle contained in clause 69 of the Coal Mines Act be inserted in the Mining Act for the purpose of providing for miners and their families in case of sickness or accident, and that a royalty be charged on every ounce of gold produced in order .to provide funds f of that purpose ; that with, a view to making it unnecessary to waste the time of boys in State schools with military drill, Government be urged to make provision for a thorough system of colonial defence by means of rifle clubs and rifle ranges in every district in the colony,' the clubs to be open to all onen above the age of seventeen.