LINES ABOUT LABOUR.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 37, 12 August 1905, Page 12

LINES ABOUT LABOUR.

If the Worker's estimate is correct, fully seven hundred out of a thousand carpenters in Brisbane are unemployed, and only about a dozen out of eighty bricklayers are at present able to secure work. The Switchmen's Union of the United States paid out in benefits during the last three years over £72,000. The Court of King's Bench recently awarded the publishing firm of Ward, Lock and Co. £650 damages against the Operative Printers' Society, for "inducing -workmen to break their contracts." Of the Queensland Government the Workejfc, says : — "It is hopeless -to look to it for any whole-hearted comprehensive effort to cope with the unemployed difficulty. 'It is impossible, ' sayfl Kidston. 'It is not our business, '• says Morgan. r In that duplex statement is i summed up the ghastly failure of the coalition to justify its existence." The Victorian Premier (Mr. Bent), replying to a recent labour deputation, emphatically pronounced against the principle of preference to unionists, and gave his interviewers to understand that in the amended arbitration legislation con- ; templated the principle in question will find no place The 1904 report of the Inspector of Factories, Work-rooms, and Shops, Vie- ■ toria, says:— "The past year, talcing the ; factories as a whole, has been tho best in the history of the State." According to the Worker, there are still some hundreds of unemployed men ' the Bundaberg district, after all white labour has been engaged for tho sugar season. Females employed in the Victorian boot factories at making, finishing, or clicking (but not skiving or trimming) insides or outsides, or stuff cutting by hand, are paid the same rales as males, ] 45s per week, this being the minimum wage fixed by the Wages Board. '. The hearing of the action brought by Thomas Kelly, a miner, against the Clarence United Company for £1000 damages, as compensation foi injuries re ceived in an explosion at the mine, has been brought to a close before Judge Johnston and jury in the County Court : at Bendigo. Thp jury, after foul hours deliberation, found that the defendant company had not taken reasonable care to prevent the accident, and assessed the damage at £250. Judge Johnston accordingly awarded plaintiff £250 damages. Costs are to be taxed. : "I want Lhis made perfectly clear, or otherwise we might be brought befort '. the Court in a few months for a breach : of the award," remarked Mr. J. L. Scott when giving evidence in tho Ar- ; bitration Court at Christchurch last week. "You should make yourself conversant with the terms of "the award," suggested the -union secretary. "I do endeavour to do so," returned Mr. Scott, "but I am working under six awards ! already." "You are npt so badly off ' as Mr. Burt, of Dunedin, who tola me ' [ he was working under fourteen awards," observed Mr. Justice Chapman, with a smile. The Auckland Star, in its weekly reporb, gives' a very unfavourable account { of the state of trade generally in the North. The building trade, it says, is very dull, and a larjre number of good : 1 tradesmen are unemployed. The furni-ture-making trade is a little better, and nearly all good tradesmen are fully employed. House-painting and decorating is only fair, a few men being un- | employed. The ironmoulding ana en- | gineering trades are very quiet. The I timber-milling industry in town and ' country districts is still fairly good. ' Country work is very scares just now. , The unskilled labour market is in a very bad state just at present. The Victorian ' Amalgamated Railway and Tramway Service Association, which was affiliated to the Labour Council lately, forwarded a strong protest 'against the Council's action in resorting to legal proceedings against railway men without first trying friendly means of settlement. There appears to have been friction between these two bodies for some time. The railway men accused the Council of acting not merely in opposition to the traditions of the labour movement, but "in opposition to British fair play." \The Council (says the Australasian) felt disposed to back down, and placato the Railway Union. The latter, however, had had enough of the Labour Council. It wrote severing its connection, and the Council was reluctantly compelled to concur. Referring to the recent Encyclical, tho Brisbane Worker says that there is no essential difference between Italian and i Australian Socialism, for the aims of j Socialists are everywhere the same. The line dividing the Cardinal and the Pope is one that has been drawp through the ages between the politically democratic churchman ami his conservative brothor of j the cloth. In any case, tho day has gone j by, it says, when a church authority) however high, can overstep its jurisdiction with profit. The Brisbane Worker says that tho list . of measures announced in the Speech at the opening of the Queensland Parliament if not all that can be desired, is, at any rate, all that could be expected ; but there are sinister influences at work. "The Morgan section is growing restless. To their recalcitrant attitude is due tho dropping of the Betterment Bill, which was to do such wonderful things for the State. To them also is attributable tho pressure which is being brought to bear upon what ia termed the more moderate Labour members to throw off the restraints of the Platform, and embark upon a career of Mor ganatic Liberalism." "The situation," it adds, "is, indeed, full of disquieting possibilities. It were idle to conceal the fact. The Labour movement was never in greater peril." Argument was commenced before the Full Court, Sydney, on the 28th ult., on an application by John and William Brown, proprietors of the Pelaw-Main Colliery, for a prohibition to restrain tho Arbitration Court and the Northern Miners' Federation from proceeding upon an order for the consolidation of two disputes which tho Federation contended was w existence between tlie Messrs. Brown and their employees. Tho main ground of the application was that the employees, after resuming work pending tho hearing of an industrial digputc between them and their employers, renounced work on the 15th June last, and thus terminated the engagement. It was also argued that they had, by htriking when an industrial c";apute was ponding, rendered themselves umcnablo to the 34th section qf tho Act. On tho other side, it was denied that tho position of master and servant had ceased to exist, and a proposition was also put forward, which appeared to startle tho Conrt, that a Union could initiate a dispute without reference to Iho men employed in the industry which it represented, and quite apart from the men themselves, who might bo satipfied with the terms of their employment. Judgment was given on tho 31st. Holding that there was no industrial dispute cognisable by tho Court, the Boncn granted the prohibition, with costs. According to latest advicea, the decision was receivod with consternation by tho minors, who woro confident' of success, and there is a general desiro to return to work. Many of the mon now rogret they did not abide by the advice given by the minors' genoral secretary, Mr. James Curley, who appealed to them to remain at work. There is great destitution among tho families of the miners, and tho £500 granted by the Colliery Employees' Federation will not tide them over many days.