LABOUR NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXI, Issue 86, 13 April 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

LABOUR NOTES.

Tha Trade Unions, auys a reoepfc writer on tTip subject, are the natural growth of natural laws, and from the veiy nature of their being have stood th« tost of tune itnd experience. The development; of tho Trade Unions, regarded tooth from tko standpoint of numorical expansion aiiii that of pr&ctioul woikiag, has been marvellously i-apid. The Trade dnioua kayo demonstrated their ability to eopo wifck of ary emergenoy—- ecwiouiio or polliilaal — us it arises. ' At a i«oent meeting of the Federated Seuin&n'a .Union of Australasia, held m Sydney, the following resolution was carried :— "That tha members of the Fodftrateil Saa«aa«a'» Union of Australasia sVftwgly protests against the I'edefiEl MSnistiy enter taming any proposal t« subsidise the Oceania Steamship Company of San Francisco, us any such notion would be ,piejudicial to the operations of tho, Canadian- Australian mail steamship line, mwmcul by Australian draws, with headquarters in Sydney." Apropos to the cable measago of the other day which infonaed u» that a dajputatiou from the ranks of the unemployed had vailed upon Lord Hopetoun o>t Melbourne, a Victorian Native writes Xrotu Melbourne to the Sydney Mornins Herald to say that there are over 4000 unemployed on the books of tho Labour Bureau ia that city and that imny of these have been registered for six or seven months, fie states that the Melbourne paj/ars refuse to report their meetings. One reet?nfr meeting was attended by over 2000 mcii, and yet the number waiting round the wharves and other places for work did not appear to be appreciably diminished. . The following lines are taken from a long poem by "Price Warung," in the Sydney Worker: — Fling wide the Gats of Living! May Australians know full life, Crowding each hour with triumph, but gained e'er with/ stainless strife !' Fling wlfo the Gate of Duty! Here, by smiling Se*as of Peace, Bid Wrong evanish, Rifcht to Rule, and Man-wrought suff'ritig cease ! Fling wide the Gates to Manhood? Here, in his full stature high, Unwarped by Oaste, suull the lowest lift his forehead to tire sky ! Fling wide the Gates of Challenge 1 , Let the winds this menace bear: "Your thraldoms base of Rank or Gold, Entrench y© ttfTre, vrho> dare !" In an article in the Westminister Review entitled "The State v. tho Man," Walter J. Baylte, Si. A., discusses tho question how iar the qconamic interests ! & tho State as a whole and those of ! the individual citizen are identical. The mere accumulatidu. of nominal wealth in the shape of claims on other men's labour, he says, is .not necessarily ad<-vanta-geous to a Stale, and it may be positively injurious to it. The constant struggles of individuals against oae another in tho race for rich.es> ex* cept in so far as it leads to the creation of new products, is really deleterious to the development of a nation. The constant endeavour. to- get into, tho class" that lives on interest and rent diminishes tha number of those engaged id produc- ■ tive labour, - whila it increases the class of "parasitas. . ' Those 'of \u who hare watched Australian politics, says the Sydney Worker, know that since the Labour Party camo into political life nioro has> been done to equalise opportunities — legal, social, political, industrial,' and educational — than during tho 30 years which previously elapsed sinco the granting of responsible Government. Hera is a hut which contains the names of some of the reforms locally vron : — One IkHan One Vote, Direct Taxation, the Exclusion of Coloured Races by an educational test, the Extension of the Franchise to the Police, a Mining on Private Lands Act, a' Workshops and Factories Act, Amendment of tho Navigation Laws. a Coalmines Regulation 'Act, the Perpetual Leasing of Lands system, tliei Early Closing Act, tbe Old Age Pension Act, the Substitution of ' Day for Contract Labour, the P-ayhient of Union Wages on Government Works, tho use of the Referendum, etc. According to reports laid before the . New South Wale* Minister for Works, many of the men working on the new k railway lines ace in the habit of squandering their earnings in public'houses, and as a result they are as poor when they finish their work, as they were whin they began it. To obviate this unsatisfactory result, Mr. O'Sullivan proposes to stop 2s per day from the pay of all the men working u,pon the naw railway lines. The moiafey thus deducted will ba put osidi lor the earners, and when they leave the work they will each receive a cueqtie and thus enabled to go to soni'B other <listrict, 6r to take up laud, or start some small business. < Owing to the closing of the Junction and tno Junction North some 600 men have been thrown out of work at Broken Hill. Someone asked of 20 men working as faiun hands in Victoria what they were paid. Twelve got lOs weekly and nine ctf these w6ie married men with families in Melbourne. The other efght were' paid 7s 6d a week.' ' . tiio Tarcoola goldfleld» (South Australia) th© rates of pay are as follows : — ." Mineiß, 10s per day, wet ground', 11» 6d per day ; brassnien, 9s 3d per day (46 hours per week), surface hands, 8s 9d per day (48 hours per week). Mr. O'SullivjiH, tho New South Wales Minister for Public Works, declares that his minute concerning unionist labour has been misunderstood. He did not say that o&ly* unionists were 'to be employed, on Government work, nor even that they ware to have a preference, but that Government should eqmmunicatie with, the Trades Hall and th«t a •'fair proportion of unionists should be employed. The spirit of our policy is far too muth that of a shop-keeping writes Walter J. Boylis, M.A., in the Westmiaister Review* We pay far more atteation to the interests of traders than to those of productive workeis. While we dlieerfuEy provide' £70,000,000 for wars undertaken ia the interests of tii& commercial class; we refuse a fraction of that isum for the pxirjaose of providing a fund for dld-age pensions. It is somewhat har,d to distinguish at first glance, says thai, ' Tocsin (Melbourne) between the theory of Wages Boards and that of Conciliation ana Arbitration Courts. It seem? to us that the theosy of the latter is that it needs the existence cf strike conditions before the Courts eac operate, wheieas the Victorian system assumes, and it seems to us- rightly, that conditions justifying a sti-Ste always exist in every trade undor the Act. In 106 cases,' says the Melbourne Age, the higher wage w in Victoria ; in 68 it is in New South Wales; 'J^ho minimum wage is higher in Victoria in 71 * cases, and in New South Wales in 16. The highest inuximum wage . is found in New. South Wale* in 52 cases, and in Victoria in 35. Victorian wages do not go so high nor fall bo low as in New South Wales. The goueral result is in ■ favour of the protected State. A Russian labourer in the Southowi Urals receives 7M per day, and a man ' with a horse and .cart gets Is lO^d per i day. The union carpenters of St. Paul (U.S.A.), have just signed an agreement with the master builders for an eighti hour day at Is 4-Jd pev hour (an increase > of l^d per hour), anfl the exc}usiv« employment of unionists.

The underground railway workers «f ' Paris, who & I ruck leeeully, bad xhd'ddemands conceded within a few days. That cv bitration is au excellent substitutu for strikes and lockouts is shown > by the bnlairco of money now in the' hand* of tho National Uniou of Shoe . Operatives. A few years ago the entire btdunco of profits of this organisation was &waUov,ed in the w«' which raged between luattar ttud man in the boot trade. Alter the sUiigglo it was agreed, that ail future disputes -should be settled by local boai-da of arbitration. The hallyearly *»gort sIiPT.-s ikat die saving upon < last six months has amounted to £6649, raising tiiu bauuice in han_ to a surplus of A) 66,061. The Melbourne City Council has decided that the wh-oio oi tho street cleansing shall in future be done by day labour, iratead of contract. Ordinary labour is' to bo paid 7s per day, drivers 7s 6d, and foremen. 9s, and even at these rates the Council hopca to effect a saving. During tho hearing of a case by the Coiliiagwood (Melbourne) Bench, a girl stated that she worked ninety-four hours in a week for 7s. One day she put ia twenty-one hours, from 4 a.m. to 1 ofclock next morning. Her employer, a baker, admitted that she Avorked eightysix hours, and that he had stopped half I a crown out of her wages for the registry office fee. Ho was merely fined 5b and costs for a breach of the Factories aud Siiops Act. The nl-st example in Southern Russia of an employer's voluntary granting of an eight-hour day to his workmen has .taken, place recently in £he little town of .Kakhdvka, government of Kliersan. M. Pankeiefi, proprietor of local mills, lias, on hia own initiative, seduced the hours of labour of his workmen from twelve l to eight, wtthovdb deducting anything from their wages. So ias, he remains quite content witk the change, and 'statos that the men have become mote alert, more attentive, and thek labour more .•productive $han. before. The Waiki Company is shortening hands for some reason or other. Perhaps the dividend is not large enough, but it is strange that the company has discovered this since the Conciliation Board proceedings. It in stated vh^t the Thames Miners'. 'Union, the parent bady, is paying £30 a week in wages to men dismissed ffom tho Waibi mine. The Thames members some time ago passed a resolution to stick by tho dismissed men while a penny remains. The dispute will probably be made general, as- it is understood that the Waihi Company insists on wider citation ol employers. An industrial struggle that may qmbraee <all the Neithern fields 'is a matter of great moment, and the Conciliation Board will do well if it secured a settlement.