LINES ABOUT LABOUR.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 79, 30 September 1905, Page 12

LINES ABOUT LABOUR.

The Federal High Court has reversed the decision of the Victorian Supreme Court in a Factories Act matter relating to the wages of "an average worker." The Court hold that a. woman who did work ac her own establishment for a clothier was an independent contractor, nob an employee. The sawmill employees -who feel it a hardship to stop in the bush (writes a . contemporary) should adopt the remedy of marriage. Mr Traill says that the married men are quite willing to stay up in the bush for weeks at a time; it is the young men , who want to get into the township every night v A Sydney bankrupt lately traced the origin of his ftulure to the time when, in a weak moment, he fell in with a moneylender lie borrowed £10 on that occasion, just five years ago, had since paid nearly £70 in interest, and cost of renewals, and still owed £52. On a recent Sunday, at Broken Hill, Victoria, a general meeting of the Australian Miners' Union was held at the Trades Holl to discuss the situation arising from the refusal of a number of members to pay the levy struck for subsidising a daily Labour paper. The matter was not finally disposed of, and the meeting adjourned till the Sunday following. The secrotary was instructed to receive all contributions from members in the meanwhile, irrespective of the lew. In the arrangement between the Home Government and the National Telephone Company, by which the State takes over' the private lines, the interests of the workers concerned have not been overlooked. It is proposed by the committee that all officers and servants who shall have been not less than two years continnously in the service of the company on 31st December, 1911, shall as from that date become officers and servants oil the Postmaster-General on tho term's of hiring and conditions of employment which obtain in the grade to which they are transferred. The Committee recommends an undertaking by the PostmasterGeneral that no servant of the company taken over by the Post Office shall suffer by the transfer whenever it takes place; and that the employees of the company shall have the option of feither continuing on the same terms as to pensions winch they now enjoy under the company, or of adopting the superannuation terms and conditions of the Post Office service. The South Australian Government hopes to find work for twenty or thirty of tho unemployed in the Ninety-mile Desert. It came to its knowledge that a large area of country was being cleared by a traction-engine near Tintinara, and that the timber was being burnu A report obtained by the Commissioner of Public Works shows thut much of the timber would make good fencing posts, for which there will be a large demand wnen the completion of the railway allows settlers to get on to the Pinaroo country. The owners of the country will give the timber to the Government, and burn the branches. The posts will ho cut and stacked along the railway line, and sold to the Pinaroo settlers at a price that will cover the cost of the work. On the recent case of alleged "sweating" in Melbourne, which the High Court decided in favour of the warehouseman on appeal, the Tocsin says:— "ln this particular case— the facts cannot be too frequently repeated— Beath, Schiess, and Co. let out the making of aprons to a Mrs. Rogers at Is per dozen ! All the Courts — M tgistrate's. Full Court, and High Court- — were satisfied that no oidinary worker could earn .the minimum wage at that rate. Now, Mrs. Rogers was rfotf & worker, but a contractor, and she sublet tha work ,at 9cl ppr dozen. In other words, she took the work at sweating rates, and got the work done at 25 per cent, lower still. All a sweater need do now is to employ a dummy contractor, end ho can sweat to his heart's content. Ninepcncc per dozen for making aprons ! And we talk of cheap-labour foreign competition !" The revival of trade this year (writes tho Westminster Gazette) has not been strongly marked, but conditions have improved slightly, and the best testimony to that is borne by the Board of Trade returns of employment. These show a percentage of 5.2 men out of work, as conipired with 6.1 in July of last year. The natural anticipation would bo that we shall not have the same amount of unemployment to deal with this winter as waa the case in the early part of the present year. In certain neighbourhoods there is bound to be distress. One of the evils of such an outpouring ofl relief as took place in West Ham last year is that it acts as a magnet to attract undesirables from all parts of tho country, many of whom settle without any chanco of even casual employment. There can be no surprise that already in West Ham there is a large percentage of unemployed, or that tho outlook for tho winter is very bad. In tho course of hearing of the disputo between the wharf labourers and the interstate steamship owners in the Arbitration Court, Sydney, Sarah Dawcs, wife of a whsrf labourer, was called by Mr. Hughes (for the men) to show the cost of living. Witness said sho had six children, the age* varying from two months to eighteen years. Deducting 5s for rent, as they let one room, sho detailed tho cost of living per week at £1 17s 3id, exclusive of fruit, fish, tobacco, boots, clothing, -medical fees, union subscriptions, or luxuries of any description They could not live on this scale but for the supplementary earnings of some of the children. Dr. Bamnrd, who had made a special study of dietetics, examined the sculc as supplied by a previous witness, and said he could not suggest any economy except that rabbits might occasionally bo substituted for meat. Captain Smith, A.U.S.N. wharf superintendent, gave the average weekly wage of preference men for eighteen consecutive weeks at £2 lib. Tho London Spectator writes in an optimistic spirit concerning Ihe Unemployed Act, one of the fow measures which marked tho late session of the Home Parliament. Almost every one (it says) has some cause to feel satisfied with the final form of the measure. Consistent Conservatives see their party no longer associated with a strangely revolutionary project. The inconsistent Conservatives, of whom Mr. Balfour is the type and leader, can please themselves with attributing to the Liberals an opposition which was only dangerous because it came principally from their own side. The Labour Party see the next Government compelled to deal with the subject afresh in three years from the date of the Act. And men who distrust Bills drawn mainly for electioneering ends, and raising more difficulties than they profess to remove — a class happily to be found in all parties — have -the satisfaction of knowing that before that times comes we shall be in possession of an immense body of information in the evidence collected by the new Poor Law Commission. No failure on the part either either of those who nominate tho Commissioners or ofl the Commissioners who ate appointed can deprive us of the benefit. We shall know what tho most competent experts think on the new and difficult problems with which the Commission will be confronted Tho report may be prejudiced, wrongheaded, one-sided. It may take no account of plain facts, and go wandering after theories which lravo no application to actual life. But the evidence will be there in any case, and in that there will be the raw material out of which all useful conclusions must in the last resort be -formed,