LABOUR ISSUE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 97, 24 April 1912, Page 3

LABOUR ISSUE.

I AUCKLAND MAYORALTY. UNUSUAL INTEREST, [B2 TBLBGaAPH — SPECIU. TO THE FOST.J ! AUCKLAND, This Day. Unusual interest attaches to the Auckland Mayoral election to-day in_view cf the fact that the contest is being fought on a, Labour issue. The present Mayor (Mr. C. J. Pan') has been unfortunate, ■an fartanate, enough to incur the displeasure of the Fe delation of Labour. whom he and his conceil have confiist-ent-ly refused, in a civic capacity, to meet or to recognise in connection with the adjustment of the wages of the corporation employees. The City Council, led by Mr. Parr, has declared for the principle of adherence to the Arbitration Act. An understanding, which included an intiease of wages, has already been arrived at on that basis, not only by the City Council, but also by several of the suburban local bodies, the agreement being followed by an application from the workmen employed by the various bodies to be registered as a separate union under the Arbitration Act. Naturally, it did not suit the Federation of Labour (which had already undertaken the conduct of the general labourers' rase in a dispute with all the employers) to have the wind takn out of it 3 sails in this way, and the result has been a very fierce and determined effort to oust Mr. Parr from the Mayoral chair. Mr. Hall Skelton, a lawyer, who is opposing Mr. Parr, has had no experience of public life, and if tha election were being fought oil per6onal grounds his candidature -would be a mere joke- Under present circumstances, however, he is likely to poll welL Both newspapers have strongly supported the re-election of Mr. Parr. The Star puts the issue as follows : — "Mr. Parr is being subjected not only to violent- opposition, but to vehement and virulent personal attacks, because in the eyes of a certain section of the workers he stands for a view of industrialism of which they do not approve. As the representatives of twenty ot our suburban local bodies pointed out in a recent manifesto, the case under .dispute is really arbitration and industrial peace on the one hand against syndicalism, the general strike, and industrial and social anarchy on the other. When Mr. Parr first aroused the animosity of the- federation by refusing to repudiate the Arbitration Court, and allow these irresponsible exponents of syndicalism, to settle our industrial difficulties in its stead, he did not stand alone. He was only one of some forty or fifty of our leading public men and members of local bodies who heartily endorsed his action, and even if Mr. Hall Skeltqn. were elected." to-day the Federation of Labour would be iio nearer the consummation of it* hopes than before." Mr. Parr, in his last address to the workers, said that the real issue was whether the City Council should surrender control of the city services to an outside body which could suspend these services by calling a general strike at any time. Mr. Webb, president of the Federation of Labour, had demanded that the city labour should come under an agreement to be made by the federation. Was it reasonable that the sanitation, electric light, and water services should be put in this manner under the hcol of a syndicate organisation? These services belonged to the citizens. Was it right Uiat a. few union officials should have the right to, stop these services at a moment's notice, and had been done last November?