LABOUR NOTES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 58, 5 September 1914, Page 11

LABOUR NOTES

(By " Optimist.") THE POSITION IN NEW ZEALAND. There is nothing of moment in the Labour movement at Wellington. There is much indignation felt in Trades Council circles over tho attitude adopted by a New Zealand Labour paper in regard to ite treatment of the war, and especially with Lord Kitchener's speech. Labour is essentially against war, and will always be 60 ; but when our existence is at stake, and the freedom which workers enjoy under the British flag is taken into account, Lubour would be foolish not to support the Empire. The Australian Labour Commonwealth Party initiated the Australian Navy and the compulsory military training. THE N.Z. FOOD COMMISSION. Labour cannot be said to have too much representation, on the Food Commission set up by Mr. Massey. A» the working community constitute the bulk of the population, its representation should have been greater; but in Mr. Barr Labour has a worthy representative. That there is ample work for the commission to do is obvious to workers who are scanning their August accounts. Absolutely famine prices as compared with other traders have been charged by some grocers. It behoves all workers to thoroughly scan their accounts for August, and check off what they consider to be overghurges. Auckland has already started relief works at the Domain for unskilled labour, but Ihe skilled trades are receiving a, set back. The building trades, painters, and driveis are a/11 feeling the pinch. Last week a. member of one of the Auckland trades unions, who volunteered for the front, called at the Trades Hall to say good-bye. Ho was wearing a pair of new boots, specially made by contract, and he took them off to show "Industrial Tramp/ in the Auckland Star tho kind of inarching boots that ho will require to use on active service. The back part of the boot showed scarcely any trace of stiffening when pressed by_ the thumb, and the lining in tho front, instead of being in ono pieco, had a stout double seam from tho toe right up to the iiwtop. He said that many of the men using the contract boots were already crippled by the preasuro of this seam. The workmanship is all right; it ib the Older issued for the making of the boot. „ At a mass meeting of unionists held xb tho Auckland Trades Hall severe strictures were passed on the authorities on the waterside continuing the restrictions onlabour on the wharves at a. time when all other avenueß of labour are open to all workers. It is felt that during the present 6tress all watersiders should have tho chance of sharing in what work is going, independent of whether they joined the ■union before Christmas or afterwards. A resolution was carried at the meeting asking the Prime Minister to take steps to compel frhe opening of the membership of the union to all applicants, as provided by the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. The following unions have joined the newly-constituted United Federation of Labour: — Auckland Gas Employees' Uniop, Auckland Painters' Union, and tho United Furniture Trades Union of Canterbury, as well as the majority of the West Coast Miners' Unions. THE FEDERAL ELECTIONS. By the time these notes appear the Federal elections will be in full swing. The Labour Party goes to the poll with confidence, asking voters to remember their policy of military training and a local navy together with their programme of reform. A Labour daily in Sydney represents Labour's cause throughout the campaign. It has been making some strenuous hits. The following Labour members have been returned unopposed :— Meßsrs. C. M'Donald, J. Pago, E. Bamford, D. Watkins, F. Brennan, J. Matthews, F. Tudor, Hugh M'Mahon. Mr. Fisher, the Labour leader, has had his opponent withdrawn, but a contest will have to be held,_ as it was withdrawn too late. The national crisis has considerably softened the clash of parties in the campaign. On the granting of the double dissolution by the GovernorGeneral, party feeling reached fever heat. For a time the campaign promised to be the most strenuous Australia has ever seen. But when the nation was threatenod, both political parties were convinced that a much greater danger than the rival party's victory existed.^ The following is the position of parties over a course of years : SENATE.

LABOUR AND THE WAR. The present crisis has been remarkable for the evidence it has furnished of universal patriotism. Speaking genor&Uy, Labour has given unanimous proof of ! oneness with the rest of the community as to the justice of Britain's attitude to "see it through." Australia has taken up a decided a/fctifcude on the matter. Mr. W. M. Hughes said "the first thing to be dono is take whatever steps may be necessary to restore public confidence ; to prevent the run on gold ; to avoid the calling up of overdrafts; to provide moans for financing industries, private and public, over this time of stress ; to minimise unemployment if not wholly prevent it. At this great crisis in our history half measures are absolutely useless. We must not allow our great industries to perish oi suffer vital injury ; our streets to be crowded with semi-starving unemployed ; our bankruptcy courts thronged with ruined business mon." One of the weekly Labour papers remarked: — "The patriotism of the Labour Party is an eminently s&no patriotism, for it never for one moment ceases to deplore that such a. condition of affairs can exist as to permit one or two ambitious monaxchs involving the whole civilised world in a life and death struggle. Labour would wish that the burden of the quarrel should rest on the propei shoulders. It is, however, recognised that we are as yet not far enough advanced in civilisation for the' attainment of such a desirable state of affairs, and therefore, in the determination to defend Australia and tho Empire, Labour is no whit behind all the patriots." ENGLISH~UNIONISM. The annual conference of the General Federation of English Trades Unions was held in Liverpool early in July. One hundred and fifty-six trades unions were represented, with a membership of 967,257, or about one-third of the organised trades unionist of Great Britain affiliated to the federation. According to the editor of tho International Newsletter, tho most pleasing development of the conference was th«". increasing recognition of tho necessity of fundamental reform, and this recognition is responsible for the hearty manner in which the invitation sent by the German Commission, asking that trade union officials be boni to Berlin by the English Trade Union Federation in order to study the trades union movement oil, the Continent, has been accepted. The ft rot group was to have spent a week in the mid-die _ of September in. Hamburg and Berlin in order to learn something of the institutions^ and practices of th© German trades unions. It was for the samo purpose — that of arriving at a mutual understanding — (hat an. agreement had beon arrived at between the International Federation of Trades Unions in Berlin and the Ruskin Lubour College in Oxford Tl'e college undertook to eerid every three months a student to Berlin to be engaged in the International office, and at the aam« time be given an opportunity of thoroughly studying the German and international movement,

Aati- Total Labour. Labour. Members. 1901 8 28. 36 1903 14 22 36 1906 ... 15 21 36 1910 23 13 36 1913 29 7 36 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 1901 16 59 75 1903 ... . 25 50 75 1906 ... . 26 49 75 1910 42 33 75 . 1913 . ... 37 38 75