LABOUR NOTES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 57, 8 March 1913, Page 12

LABOUR NOTES

(By "Unionist.")

| ITEMS OF INTEREST. It will bo a week or two yet before tho Labour candidates take the public platform in furtherance of their candidature for the civic bodies. A preliminary meeting of the selected men will be held next week to arrange a plan of campaign. Most of tho candidates will bo in attendance at the next meeting of the Labour party, and may be expected to give short initial addresses on municipal politics. The municipal elections will be held on 30th April. _ It is provided in the Act that the petition for a poll on the holiday question must be presented not later than one month prior to polling day. Trade Council officials propose to present the petition on or about the 30th mat. Already a poll is assured. There are approximately 4000 signatures in hand, but the work of obtaining names will be carried on till the date of presentation of the petition. Opponents of preferential voting argue that it is too complicated to permit of the average elector casting an intelligent vote under the v system. Advocates of the reform urge that all that is needed is that tho voter shall express his choico in the order 1, 2. 3, and onwards. An illustration of the simplicity of tho preferential vote, and of the ease with which it can be understood, was afforded by tho Labour Council plebiscite taken last month. Of the aggregate of votes returned, only four were informal. In every instance the preference vote was used, and in many cases the full number of choices wore availed of, A sum of £750 was netted by tho Otago District Labour Council as a result of tho industrial exhibition it promoted. The money will be used in defraying the debt on tho Trades Hall. Little is heard here of the activities of the South African Labour Party, but it has a record of steady progress since the inauguration of the Union. At present it is represented in the Senato by one member, Mr. Whiteside, ahd by the following five members in the Assembly: — Messrs. Andrews, Boydell, Cresswell, Madeley, and Sampson. It ha.c 34 elected members on town councils, and 'three members in tho Transvaal Provincial Council. As a result of the Wages Board determination in the dispute betweeh the Sydney City Council and its employees, tho wages bill of the council will be increased by £30,000 per year. The award is made for a period of three years, and is the result of several months' deliberation over tho case. Altogether 2500 workers are affected by the award. Following are tho main provisions of the award : —Nine "holidays per year, 48 hours per week for the labouring section, 51 hours for market attendants, and 59^ hours for attendants at public conveniences. Wages: watchmen, £3 6s per week; convenience attendants, £2 16s; general labourers, 9s per day ; gardeners, 10s to !& per day ; mechanics ahd tradesmen, from 10s to 13s ♦d per day. Speaking at Heefton the Hon. F. M. B. Fisher said he thought there should not be any necessity, for the Government to be dragged into the Arbitration Court. They ought to find out what was a living wage and pay it. "An adequate wage should be paid by the State co that the private employer would follow the example 6et. A living wage was not merely sufficient for a man to live upon ; it should be sufficient to keep_ a wife and family, and enough to provide fpr cases of sickhess and old age. That is a living wage," said Mr. Fisher at Kumara. .London bakers are reported to be planning a strike at Easter time. Following are the main demands of the union ih the trade : —(1) Hours to be 54 per week, including one hour per day for meals. (2) Wages: Foremen (not more than three men employed), 38s per week ; more than three and not over five, 425 ; all over five, not less than 48s. Second hands, 32s (> 365, and 40s, according to above-mentioned number of hands ; Scotch fores or single hands, 34s per week ; ovenmen in factories, 355. Small goods men (i.e., biscuit bakers and pastrycooks) : Foremen (not more than two employed), 38s per week j moro than two and not over four, 425 ; all over four not les6 than 48s. All other adult workmen: Shops, 30s ; factories, 325. About 1200 workers will 6hortly be employed in the two camps on the Transcontinental Railway. In tho West Australian • camp the wage for labourers is fixed at 11s per, day, and on the South Australian section _at 10s per day. No grog is permitted in either camp. At the seventh annual conference of the Queensland State Labour Party, the question^ of the repeal of the Religious Instruction in Schools Act came up for discussion._ The conference resolved : — "That while the Q.L.P. does not believe in determining religious questions by means of a referendum, this convention considers that the F.L.P. is justified in supporting or initiating a proposal, to repeal the present system of religious teaching in State schools by means of a referendum of the people of the State." When the Fisher Commonwealth Labour Government took offioe they found a deficit of £5,000,000, and now, after three years' honest administration, they have a surplus of nearly. £1,000,000. Mr. Fisher has lent the States £6,000,000 at .3£ per cent., thereby saving them the £29,500 in flotation and interest charges. The Federal land taoc is raising £1,500,000 for defence and postal purposes from taxpayers who never knew the pinch of poverty. The State coal mine at Wonthaggi (Vie toriaj is now yielding a grofit of £1000 per week to its owners, the people of "Victoria. The validity of the State law fixing a fifty-four hours maximum working Week for women was recently tested at the Supremo Court, Brooklyn. In upholding the law, Justice Blackman eaid : — "Tho development of the industrial Hfo of the nation, tho pressure of women and children entering tho industrial field in competition with men physically better qualified for the struggle, has compelled them to submit to conditions and terms of service which it cannot bo presumed they would freely choose. Their liberty to contract to Bell their labour may bo but another name for involuntary servitude crated by existing industrial conditions. "A law which restrains the liberty to contract may tend to emancipate them by enabling them to act as they choose and not as competitive conditions compel. All these considerations are for the Legislature, and for the Legislature alone. It is only where the statute controls conduct in matters plainly and obviously indifferent "to tho welfare of the public, or any portion thereof, that the courts can pronounce the act violate of civil liberties. Certainly this is not such a case. "Laws which may be meddlesome interferences with the liberty of the individual in a primitive state may, in a highly organised society, become essential to public welfare, or even to the continuance of civil liberties themselves "

A new kind of fraud committed to a very large extent on railway companies was described at Reading lately, when the local 'manager to, the Knglish Record Company, Ltd., pleaded guilty to attempting to obtain money by false pretences from the Great Western Railway Company. It was said that the defendant had made a practice, after receiving a parcel of gramophone records, of claiming for a number "broken in. transit," and in five months the company had paid him nearly £11 in compensation and received only 12s lid in carriage. Suspicions being aroused, a packet was opened and every record marked. Afterwards he claimed for "five broken." He was lined £5. Counsel said that by this kind of bogus claim the railway eampjuiiee have lately been degriuded of thousanda-of pound*.