LABOUR MATTERS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 37, 12 August 1912, Page 3

LABOUR MATTERS

STATE OF AFFAIRS AT WAIHI. . « fBY TELEGRAPH — PRISS ASSOCIATION.] AUCKLAND, 11th August. Mr. J. E. Howard, of Christchurch, a member of the Executive Committee of ■the Federation of Labour, who has been paying a visit to Waihi, returned to Auckland last night, and left again for To Kuiti to-day in response to an invitation to address a meeting there. Prior to his departure Mr. Howard told a reporter that he had gone to Waihi unofficially in order to' gather his own impressions as to the condition of things ther* to-day compared with the Waihi which he knew come years ago. Mr. Howard was amused at the notion of disorder at Waihi. " You. would wonder where the men were' at all," he said, "until you remembered ithat they were probably in bed. There was no eign of the slightest disorder of any kind. But, then, that had already been admitted even by the Conciliation Commissioner." Questioned as to allegations concerning tho carrying of revolvers, Mr. Howard said ithat ho had not seen a revolver during the whole of his stay in Waihi. V " With to the suggestion that he had led the men at Waihi to believo that the federation was organising for a big fight, Mr. Howard was quite frank. Indicating 'i his colleagues— Messrs. Parry and Fraser— who a^o took part in tha conversation, he asked : " What do you suppose we are stumping the country'for if we are not organising? Of course we are going to put up a big fight. We are, in fact, putting up a big fight now." He went on to say that, during the past six weeks delegates from the federation had addressed 150 meetings in various parts of New Zealand, and requests were coming in constantly from different districts asking that a man should be sent along to explain the position, and, Mr. Howard pointed out, not one of iheee delegates was being paid for the work either.