NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 18, 22 January 1916, Page 12

NOTES.

Mr., Tom Long, lor some years secretary of the Auckland Hotel and Restaurant Employees' Union, has entered camp as a member of the 12th Reinforcements. . Before ■ leaving Auckland he was given, a send-off in the Trades Hall, and presented with a' purse of sovereigns.

New South Wales teachers at the annual conference of their association rer ceived a promise from the Minister for Education that he would ..increase the minimum1 wage after'the war. A proposal to form an industrial union and apply for a, Wages Board was discussed and postponed for consideration- at a special conference. . About 100,000 railway men in Germany have gone to the front. Before the war all men entering the Prussian State Railway Service were required to forswear Trades Unionism and Socialism, even to thts extent of. promising not to read, newspapers supporting these movements.. . Employees engaged. since . the war broke' out have. not beerf .similarly bound. . . ... . ......

Since July,. 1914, accor.4ing to' a ,New York exchange, pri.ces.for foodstuffs have advanced in the .United Stales, owing .to the enormous quantities sent abroad.. In three staples of diet, sugar, meat, and flour, the increases' have varied from 11 to 20 per cent., representing an increase of 15 per cent, over the price of all foods.

A two-years' agreement has been entered into .between the Storemen and Packers' Union and oil'firms throughout Australia, fixing the rate of pay for storemen at 57s 6d a week, leading hands to receive 62s 6d, and head store-' men 67s 6d a week, and casual hands la 9d an hour.

New South Wales Department of Lands is making available for leasing under share-fanning twenty-one farms in Wyalong .district.- Houses will ba erected on the farms, and- the land will be cleared and fenced. A village settlement, with store, school,- and recreation hall, is included in the scheme. General Borro, second, in command of the Italian Forces, worked for two years as a-. bricklayer. More than once he went as a workman into Austrian territory, so that he might become closely acquainted with the ground over which he felt that one day the struggle for the future of Italy would be fought. The A.L.F. (Western AustraJia) lias decided, • according to ■■ the Western Worker, : to write to the Premier, asking him to endeavour to have the Arbitration Act so amended as to allow of a layman being appointed to the position of President of the Court; "The reason for this is that they.have no confidence in the Court as at present constituted^ iri view of the statement of the President 'that no notice is to be taken, of the cost of living when considering The amended determination of the Victorian Plumbers' Board, to jcome into operation on Ist January, provides for material increases in wages. The wages of foremen have- been increased from £3 11s 6d per week of 44 hours to £3 18s lOd, and the wages of plumbers or gasfitters from £3 6s to £3 13s 4d. The wages of improvers, at. present fixed according to experience, will be fixed' according 1o age.