LINES ABOUT LABOR.

Evening Star, Issue 12866, 16 July 1906, Page 3

LINES ABOUT LABOR.

Labor Day this year falls on Wednesday, October 10. Interesting sidelights on the groat and economic conditions of South Africa are contained in a letter sent to Mr P, J. ’ ■V| e 8 a ' 1 , of Wellington, from tho Transvaal by an old miner and acquaintance of has, who worked for many years in the quartz mines of Roefton, and afterwards at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, but who has been for some time past engaged in a Transvaal mine. Inter alia, he says;— " Of course, you would like to know something of the labor conditions here. Well, they are horrible by comparison with those obtaining in dear old New Zealand. Even white miners get only two holidays in the year—Christmas Day and Good Friday and all the batteries crush on Sundays! Here let me say that New Zealand is ‘ God’s own country ’ all right, only we don’t seem to realise it until we get away from it. All the New Zealanders here wear a suvor fern in tlieir harts, and if you w*wit to get. their backs up, just point out the troops of Chinamen trudging along to work, ajuj say ‘That is what we fought for.' Let me tell you that not a Now Zealander bare would shoulder a gun against the Boers again. But, getting back to the labor question. You have no idea bow the poor Kaffirs are despised. The poor wretches get mealie porridge at 4 am., then thov tramp down the mines from 800 ft to 4.000 ft below, and they get nothing again until five in the evening— except*a flogging now and again from a boss ‘ boy ’ who uses a sjambok (whip), with which they wouldn’t let yon strike a horse in New Zealand. I have seen whit© bullies kick these unfortunate fellows, bat my experience—and I have a lot of them under roe—is that you can get along far better by showing a little human kindness to them. The Chinaman, on the other hand, gets as well fed as fully half the white men, and each man of them carries a small loaf of white bread every day down the mine for his lunch.” The accounts already published of the proceedings at the Federal Labor party caucus meetings early this month with respect to the Liberal-Labor relations at the coming Federal elections are substantiated by the text of the resolution passed thereat, which has now been communicated by Mr Watson, leader of the partv, to the Executives of all the political Labor organisations in Australia. The resolution runs as follows:—(l) _“That we bring order the notice «? the political Labor Executives the fact that the Federal Parliamentary Labor party promised to do all in their powei to secure for certain members of the Federal Parliament immunity from Labor opposition at the ensuing elections.’’ (2) “That the promise was given because the said members helped to defeat the avowed enemy of labor, Mr G. H. Reid.” (3) “That this party approve and endorse the action of Mr Watson in regard to his promise to such mem,here of a conditional immunity from opposition at the forthcoming election.” According to the London ‘Tribune,’ a rupture has occurred at Calder Vale, near Preston, between a trade union and a firm of cotton manufacturers. Six months ago, it is alleged, Messrs Jas. W. Liver and Sons, manufacturers, discharged two girl weavers because they refused to resign their membership of the Preston Weavers’ Association. Subsequently a conference was arranged between the union officials and Mr Liver regarding the dispute, but for some reason it did not take place Recently the Weavers’ Association issued posters inviting the weavers, winders, and warpers in the village to a dance at which an address would be given by one of their officials. Mr Liver thereupon ordered the engine to lie stopped, and. calling the work-people together, threatened to discharge them if they attended the dance. The dance was held in duo course, but was only sparsely rtttended. Mr Liver as a counter-attrac-tion, gave the over-lookers and old bands a party, at his house. Mr Liver, however, states that invitations for his party were issued before the danoe was advertised. The union officials express their determination to pursue their efforts to induce the Calder Vale weavers to join their Association, but Messrs Liver submit that their weavers me more opposed to the Association than their firm in consequence of their wages being reduced through the Association endeavoring to bring them into line with the frages paid in Preston. Archbishop Clarke has written to Mr Short ill, secretary to the Lmeroployed Committee, Melbourne, stating that he" had laid before the Premier the names and addresses of thirty men supplied him as wanting work. Mr Bent, he says, mentioned the plan which he has for establkhmg farms lor unemployed. The archibishop’s letter concludesl hope your Committee will now discontinue these Sunday visits, which are having the effect of alienating from rhe unemployed that sympathy and consideration which all right-minded citizens feel for those who, though willing to work, are unable to obtain it. Between now and next Sunday it is anticipated that some means will be devised of .abating the nuisance without making ‘martyrs’ of noto-riety-huntere.” In Japan, in the textile industries, women are largely employed at a wage corresponding to 7d a day. More expensive men get the princely aim of lOd a day. Tailors, ’ masons, and wood-workers gain weekly mc<mes ranging from 5s to 7s. Printers are oven worse off, averaging only 4s a week. The Christchurch branch of the Workers’ Political Association is evidently keeping a sharp look-out on the conduct of municipal affairs. At Thursday’s meeting the following resolutions were carried : —“ (1) That as the Christchurch Gob Company are standing in tho way of the City Council in the important matter of acquiring the gasworks, and as the City Council are prohibited by law from compulsorily acquiring the Gas Company’s works by purchase, and are denied the right of establishing a gasworks of their own, • this Association would respectfully suggest to the City Council the advisableness of taking immediate steps to promote a private Bill giving compulsory purchasing power to the City Council at a price to be fixed by arbitration under the provisions of the Arbitration Act, 1890.” “(2) That a letter be directed to the City Council, urging the Council to increase the wages of the lower-paid men in their employ, and to make such arrangements as may be necessary for the institution of forty-four hours as a week’s work, thus providing for a weekly half-holiday for the .men in their employ.” ‘‘(3) That this Association view with regret the decision of the City Council in debarring, without discrimination, philawthronic and other bodies from meeting in the Council Chambers.” As a result of negotiations that have been proceeding for some time past between representatives of the New South Wales Branch of the Federated Seamen’s Union of Australasia and representatives of the coastal shipowners, an agreement has been arrived alt, by which the men will receive certain concessions., in regard to wages and working conditions. The men will receive 10s a month more in wages, which will bring the rate up to that which was in existence prior to the reduction in 1903, and on all Sundays and will be allowed off from midnight to midnight, a concession which they have not enjoyed since 1890. Payment at a special rate for sailing on Sundays and holidays and other concessions of a minor nature have also been granted. The agreement filed in the Arbitration Court has been signed on behalf of the North Coast Comnany, the Newcastle and Hunter River Company, and the Illawarra Company, and about 400 seamen will benefit in consequence. Steps are now being taken with a view to bringing other coastal shipowners into line, in order to avoid recourse te the Arbitration Onrt. During May the Public Works Department had 5,002 men engaged on railway construction throughout the colony. They •were distributed as follows :—North Island Main Trunk, 2,188; Midland (four sections), 1,154; Helensville northwards, 322; Blen-heim-Waipara, 288; Hokitika-Ross, 216; Otago Central, 179; Gisborne-Rotorua, 133; Gatlins-Waimabaka, 132; Kawa-kawa-Grahamstown, 123; Lawrenoe-Rox-burgh, 122; Stratford-Ongarue, 116; Jlounfc Egmont, 109; Ngahere-Blackball, 1; Orepuki-Waiau, 74; Westport-Inan-gahua, 60. v ‘The Times’ of June 1 had an exceptionally outspoken leader on the Chicago meatpacking horrors. Inter alia it said; • Soane questions were asked on the subject at' the meeting yesterday of the Liverpool

Health Committee; and, of course, there were people who spoke of exaggeration and deplored the damaging effect of such discloMireu upon the tinned meat trade. We only hope they will prove damaging, and very damaging. A member of an oldestablished Liverpool firm having relations with packing-homes! in various parts of America said ■ that he quite believed the stories now told. As to chicken and ham and brawns he thought that if the people only knew what goes into the tins they would hardly consume any more. ‘ After i visit to a packing-house, where the i stench was horrible, the suit of clothes ho wore was unfit to wear for a fortnight.' If as much as that is known in Liverpool from personal observation, we may well demand something more than the assertions of interested parties to shake our belief in the disclosures of Mr Roosevelt’s representatives, or of Mr Upton Sinclair. The chapters of the novel dealing with the interior of the packing-hou es are simply an expansion of the horribly pregnant and suggest ve sentence we have quoted. , We have the authority of the Council of the Medical Society of the County of New York for saying that these diclosures, disgusting as they are, reveal only a part of an almost universal system of the basest and most fraudulent adulteration of food, drink, and drugs. They reveal something more. Horrible as are the details from a sanitary point of view, the grinding tyranny by which men, women, and children axe forced step by step down to the lowest depths of degradation and depravity by the bosses of trie beef trnst is perhaps more awful still. The conditions of work in these establishments are at best sufficiently demoralising, but they might at least be mitigated by humane treatment. On the contrary, they are aggravated by a brutal system carried out by brutal agents, a sy; tern by which, in a land supposed to be free and democratic, the plutocrat grinds the souls of men and women as ruthlessly as his machines disintegrate his tuberculous cattle, his cholerasmitten hogs, and his putrid hams. Universal suffrage, universal education, omnipresent free libraries, all the panoply of modem panaceas for the abuses supposed to be inseparable from older regimes, result in a tyranny more body and soul destroying than any exercised by autocrats or feudal oppressors. Mr Sinclair closes his book with an . impassioned appeal for Socialism to redress the evils of individualism run mad. But who shall guarantee that men such aa have captured the industrial machine will not also capture the State machine of tho Socialist Utopia? Had wo not better—and in this country, perhaps, as well as in the United States—hark back a little to the ideas of an older morality, and try to restore in the community something of the notions of duty and of simple giving which are now unhappily much out of fashion?"

The British Consul at Chi-fu gives particulars of the industrial activity of the German community at Tringtau. A glass factory has been established at Poshan, on a branch line of the Tsingtau-Chman Fu Railway, the machinery for which is to be exclusively of German manufacture. A sugar refinery is to be estabK bed at Tsingtau, which is expected to put an end to the monopoly hitherto enjoyed in Northern China by the two English refineries at Hongkong. Its daily output is estimated at 200 tons, requiring about 80,000 tons of raw sugar annually from the Dutch Indies and the Philippine Islands. A soap factory also has been opened, equipped with two boilers each of 2,000 litres (440ga1), and a third of 6.000 litres (1,320ga1), and with machinery the greater part of which has been supplied by a Dresden firm. The text of the Bill to provide for taking a census of production, introduced in the House of Commons by the President of the Board of Trade (Mr Lloyd George) under the ten minutes rule on May 16, contains ten clauses,! and a schedule giving a “ list of persons required to make returns,” of which the following is the telt:— (a) The occupier of every factory or workshop within tho meaning of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901. (b) The owner, agent, or manager of every mine and quarry. (c) Every builder, that is to say, a person who, by way of trade or business, undertakes the construction, alteration, repair, or decoration of a building or any part thereof. (d) Every person who by way of trade or business executes works .of construction, alteration, or repair of railroads, tramroads, harbors, docks, canals, sewers, roads, embankments, reservoirs, or wells, or of laying, altering, or repairing gas or water pipes or telegraphic, telephonic, or electric lines or works, or any other prescribed works. (e) Every person who by way of trade or business gives out work to be* done elsewhere than on his own premises. (f) Every person carrying on any other trade or business which may be prescribed.