WORK AND WAGES

Evening Star, Issue 12399, 12 January 1905, Page 6

WORK AND WAGES

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright,

A SERIOUS RIOT.

. ST. PETERSBURG, January U. Dnimg a riot at Baku twenty nwn were killed, and 100 oil towers were destroyed by fire. 9

RUSSIAN IMMIGRANTS. NEW YORK, January 11. Seventy-five thousand one hundred ami sixty Russian Jews landed in New York in five months. Many were deported onthe ground that they were assisted immigrants, The records of the deportation* will be submitted to Congress with a view to taking steps to lessening the ihflny BRITISH ALIENS. LONDON, January tl (Received January 12, at 8.48 a.m.) Ninety-five thousand seven hundred and twenty-four aliens landed l in Great Britain in 1904 with a view to remaining, an increase of 13,124. Those in transit number 99,576, a decrease of 25,000. THE POSmON AT NEWCASTLE. ' SYDNEY, January W (Received January 12, at 9.53 ajn.) The i position m Newcastle is unchanged. The Cabinet considered the situation. The Premier stated that if employers can be fined under the Arbitration Act and employees can snap their fingers at it, then a one-sided Act of that character could net stand one day longer.

COAL MINERS’ DISPUTE. ■tnS 16 Mines Act Amendment Act, law, which was the outcome of much discussion in the House after somewhat lengthy and heated evidence had been tendered before the Mines Committee, is to come before the Arbitration Court for interpretation in the Westport coal dispute. £hich is to bo heard on the 26th inrt. at West-port. Solicitors, mine managers, and members of the House differ as to it* moaning, and the effect it will have on the coal industry. The general opinion of those interested is that it will prove a knotty ' question, and that the interpretation will not be in the interests of either employed or employer. Mr William Scott, the secretary of the Otago Employers’ Association, leaves for Westport next week to assist the Westport Coal Company, and will be associated with Mr J. Dixon, mine manager at Denniston, and Mr Gr. Fletcher, mine manager at Granity Creek. Mr Foster will, as usual, conduct the case for the union. The Amendment Act of 1901 reads aa folows:—“Section 6: (1) Subject to the provisions of the Act, a miner shall not' be employed underground for a longer period in any day than eight hours, exclusive of meal times; (2) such period of eight hours shall be deemed to commence from the time the miner enters the mine, and to finish when be leaves the mine; (3) the prescribed number of working hours may from time to time be exceeded, but oh every such occasion wages shall be paid for such extended hours at not less than one-fourth as much again as the ordinary rate; (4) where in any award of the Court of Arbitration under the Indurtrial Cbnciliation and Arbitration Act-, 1900, made prior to the commencement of this Act, provision is made limiting tit extending the hours of miners working underground in any mine, or providing for lbs payment of overtime, this section shall, in respect to such mine, and so long as such award continues in force, be read and construed subject to such award.” The Amendment Act of 1905 reads as follows:—“Section 2; (1) Subject to the provisions of any award now in force under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, 1900, a miner shall be entitled to be paid overtime when be is employed nnderground in a mine for more than eight hours in any day, counting from the time lie enters the underground workings of the mine to the time he leaves the same; (2) for the purposes of this section ‘miner’ means any workman employed underground in a mine: (3) this section is in suDstitution for section 6 of the Coal Mines Act Amendment Act, 1901, and that section and subsection 3 of section 9 of the Mining Art Amendment Act, 1902, are hereby repealed.”

An American journal expresses doubt whether since 1897 there has been an increase in wages in America anything like equivalent to the advance in prices of commodities, and it affirms that this certainly has not been the case as regards average salaries. The average man’s labor unit, it proceeds to declare, has unquestionably produced less commodities for him in the past three years than it did seven years ago.