LINES ABOUT LABOUR.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue LXIV, 13 September 1902, Page 4 (Supplement)

LINES ABOUT LABOUR.

The New South Wales State clothing factory is beginning to get under way. Mr. W. J. Fallon has been appointed manager. Considerable concern has been excited among tho permanent way men on the Wc&t Australian nulways regarding the proposal by tho Comnmiioncr to icduco the wages of tho peimuueut way men over 44 years of ago to 7s a day, or failing that to discharge them from the service. Some 120 of the Brisbane unemployed havo beeu given work on lailway extensions in Queensland. A very practical step is being taken by the Melbourne Typographical Society to remedy the unemployed difficulty. In a letter to the Victorian Minister for Lands the society states thut it has determined W send out two unemployed printers in order to sco whether men can earn a fair living by trapping rabbits. These men are to be fully equipped ana given a small weekly allowance by the society. If the experiment is successful printers unable to obtain work in the city will turn their uttention to rabbit trapping. All that the society desired tho Minister to do was to obtain free passes for tho two men. The division in the New South Wales Assembly the other day in regard to State ironworks (according to the Sydney Telegraph) reveals the exceeding weakness of the Labour Party when it stands by itself. Twenty-two members of the party voted, being within two or three of its full strength. Counting the pairs, it was assisted by eleven members from the Government and Opposition sides, yet all told it could only muster 33 votes out of a comparatively small House of 85. Even in that House the majority against the party and its helpers for tho occasion was about 20. In a full House the position would, of course, be much worse. In the Legislative Assembly recently a discussion arose on a motion for adjournment as to the Government finding work for the unemployed. Numerous suggestions were made for solving the difficulty, such as allowing unlicensed hawking in the streets, forest-thinning, erection of the new city railway station, clearing of Crown lands, sewerage of public works, and construction of various railway lines. Mr. Shiels, the Treasurer, in reply, said the Government had a limited capacity for finding money, but when the financial measures, were dealt with the Ministry would do all that could be expected in the direction of proceeding with public works. The Victorian Minister of Lands was recently approached by a deputation representing the unemployed, who suggested that gangs consisting of eleven m#n each should be equipped at a cost of £44 12s a gang, and sent out to trap rabbits. Tho Minister, however, was not prepared to go so far. All that he would agiee to do Was to give free passes to good men who knew something about rabbiting work. Tho members of the deputation told Mr. M'Kenzie that it would not be possible for them to go out rabbiting unless some provision was made by tho Government on the lines suggested. Replying to a deputation from the Sydney Labour League which came to ask for State ironworks, Mr, O'Sullivan, the New South Wales Minister for Works, said that he wished to emphasise the fact that the Government had resisted any attempts to establish monopolies in connection with ironworks. Several proposals for Government assistance had been made and rejected. In accordance with the law of development the matter murt come up for discussion in Parliament again, and when that was the case the utmost freedom would be given to have the question thoroughly threshed out. The chief difficulty in starting a big project like this was the matter of money .« Tho Government had gone to very largo expense in connection with tho Rocks resumptions and other schemes, while there was a very important measure now beforo Parliament in regard to water conservation, which would mean further expenditure. All these things would make it a difficult business for any Government to take up the matter at once. This was a subject for Cabinet decision, and not for any particular member of the Government. The representations of the deputation would be placed before his colleagues, probably at the first Cabinet that met. In connection with tho recent shipwrights' strike in Sydney some speculation has taken place as to the powers of the Arbitration Court to prevent strikes. Mr. Sinclair, one of the employers concerned, gave it as his opinion that the Arbitration yCourt having recently decided that the prevention of strikes was beyond its jurisdiction (in the matter of the Oigarmakors' Union), and that a strike waa «, misdemeanour which could only be dealt with by on« party bringing the other before a Magistrate, and getting the matter remitted to tho Criminal Court at Darlinghurst, and pleading the cause before a jury as, if the other party were a thief or a robber, meant that the Act, so far as the prevention of strikes was concerned, had turned out to be a complete failure. As a. matter of fact, it had not prevented strikes on the wharves at Newcastle, in the shipbuilding trade in Sydney, and araongs* 1 . tho shearers in the country. Until the Arbitration Court had power to deal with the matter as a Judge would deal with contempt of Court tho legislation would nrrt act as a preventive to industrial strife. ' 'lhe question of boy-labour came up at a recent inoeting of the Sydney Boot Operators' Union. Delegates from the Masters' Association urged tho union to accept tho Melbourne rate of pay for boys. The union then informed the conferonco that the proportion of boys they were ready to 'accept was one boy to every two men, three boys to five men, four boys to seven men, five boys to eleven men, six boys to fourteen men, seven boys to seventeen men, nine boys to twenty men, and one boy to three \nen thereafter. Mr. Baldly, on behalf of the masters, raised the question of the manufacturers of New South Wales being placed on a worse footing than the manufacturers of Victoria. Aftor a lengthy discussion the question was referred back to tho union for consideration, and it was finally flecided to adopt the Victorian statement with respect to boy-labour. The United States Department of Labour has sent Professor J. H. Gray to England to make enquiries among both employers and employed, with a view to obtaining a full statement of facts with regard to restriction of output as practiced in that country cither by men or by masters. Seventy telephone girls of lowa, U.S.A., were recently on strike for a nine-hour day. Tho girls have organised a union and affiliated with the American Foder.it ion, so tho strike may-spread over the States. Efforts wore being made a few weeks ago to ortfjnise a general strike among the Spanish railway workers. The freight handlers' and teamsters' strike in Chicago was short-lived, but (writes an American paper) it cost millions of dollars nevertheless. It had to be short-lived : for the city, incluviiug the strikers, simply could not live if the strike lived. Modern i-oeiety exists within and upon an industrial mechanism so complex and delicate of adjustment that a strike of 10,000 or 20,000 men can be located so as to aiTecl seriously millions lof people. Pietty soon (adds our contemI por.iry) it will be understood that society | simply cannot endure a regime of fiec [ and unlimited striking.