LINES ABOUT LABOR.

Evening Star, Issue 12872, 23 July 1906, Page 3

LINES ABOUT LABOR.

Mr J. A. Millar is generally footed apon as the probable Minister of Labor when Cabinet Reconstruction, takes place at tie beginning of next month. In the Old Country municipal socialism continues to progress. The Birmingham Corporation have made a net profit of £6,097 from electricity during the past year. In Nottingham the profits of the elec&icity department have increased from £9,000 to £13,000, and the tramways have produced a profit of £20,000. In Salford the Corporation find themselves with a net surplus of £22,000, out of which £13,000 goes to the relief of the rates. . The Corporation of Bolton have j made £1,600 from their markets, £4,000 from tramways, £6,000 from elec-j trinity, £12,000 from waterworks, and £22,000 from their gasworks—in all, about £43^600 —resulting in a saving to the rates of Is 4|d in the £. The Glasgow Corporation now propose to add to their other activities that of establishing a romplete time-service, combined with the supplying and lending of clocks, etc, to nllices, shops, and warehouses, as has been done by the Normal Zeit Company in Berlin and Antwerp. In this system eacE clock has a self-contained movement, and the operations of regulating and winding are performed every four hours by electrical currents from the contra! station. A movement having for ih? object the organisation of the manufacturing industries of Great Britain has recently been started. Manufacturers, it is stated, feel that the time has now come when they must combine in order to protect their interests, ("specially in view of the activity and influence of the Labor party. A* provisional committee has been formed to carry on the work of organisation. The Association will bo called the Manufacturers' Association of Great Britain. Their principal aims may be summarised as follows: —To represent to the Government and the country the principles, aims, and needs of manufacturers; to bring about closer relations between employers ;<nd employees; to deal with the matters of common interest affecting manufacturer?, fiich as legislation, taxation, rates, etc., and to deal with matters of international interest, such as tariffs, trusts, etc. It is felt that tb# time has come when workmen should be instructed hi the economics of production in enjestions? affecting organisation, management of factories, the effect of tariffs, and unlimited competition. Mr Bent, the Victorian Premier, arranged for nearly two hundred of the unemployed to be put to work on metropolitan and country improvements. He also .decided to set apart £3OO for the relief of Uk> wives and families of distressed unemployed, at tHtf same time issuing a notification that private subscriptions to supplement the fund would be acceptable. The Labor Bureau were also directed to give preference to distressed unemployed. The South Australian Labor party are Eletermined to put Mr Batchelor, M.P., who was Minister for Home Affairs in Mr Watson's Ministry, in nomination for the Senate. Mr Batchelor is understood not to be at all anxious to leave the House of Representatives, but as he topped the poll in tho Labor plebiscite it is to be presumed that he will assent to the wish of his friends in Adelaide and stand for tho Senate. The West Australian Parliamentary Labor party held a caucus meeting to consider the action of Mr A. J. Wilson, for Forrest, in accepting £SO from the timber combine towards the expenses of his visit to the eastern States to incruire into tho timber industry. The following resolutions were passed: "This meeting unequivocally condemn the action of Mr Wilson in accepting money for his trip to the east from the timber combine, Millar's Karri and Jarrah Company. That this resolution be forwarded to the Labor organisations in the Forrest electorate." Asked whether this action meant that Mr Wilson would not in future be recognised as a member of the 'Labor party, a Labor member said it was open for Mr Wilson to take whatever action he chose. When recently addressing the colored students of the Hampton Institute at Hampton, Virginia, Mr Roosevelt declared that industrial education was best for the average negro and for the average man. "The wrong twist," the President added, " given to our education in the past is largely responsible for the present unhealthy development of the city at the expense of the country. iS'o nation has been permanently great whose city population was enormous as compared with its country population." He urged the students to take up agricultural work first for others, but ultimately to acquire farms of their own.—Reuter. In a speech last week before the South - bridge (Canterbury) branch of the Farm Workers' Union, Mr J. F. Arnold, referring to the lot of many country children who had to work hard before and after school hours, said that if the child was to be protected in the city, it must be protected in the country.—(Applause.) If the factory in the city coxdd not be run at a profit without child labor, it should be closed. If dairying would not pay in the country unless the children were to be made little white slaves, it should be left to some other country. He believed that the day would come" when the Legislature would have to provide a minimum wage not only for the children, but for the whole of the farming community. He also believed that a certain number of hears' work should be fixed for each employee. In his opinion legislation would ultimately have to be passed to give preference to unionists. Under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act the conditions of the workers had been greatly improved, and he hoped to see the union still agitating under its powers. The land should remain in the hands of the Government. Ifc was a question for the workers. If the Government bought two or three hundred acres of land from the big squatter and divided it into small sections that land shonld not be parted with to those who had the lease, or in any way by which it might become converted into big blocks again. Female labor seems to be well organised throughout the United Kingdom. In London a short time ago the telephone girls, the blacking girls, the tea packers, and the paper-bag makers went out on strike, and were successful. In Dundee 30,000 came out and were partially successful; and a few weeks ago saw 1,700 flax-spinners go on strike in Brechin (Forfar, Scotland). Now we are advised by rable that 14,000 women have gone out iu Belfast, Ireland. These women prepare the material for the exquisite lace and hand-embroidery finished in the cottages of Donegal, Down, and Antrim. Their principal grievance is the lowness of wages. Fifteen years ago the average weekly earnings of the linen workers amounted to about 15s, as compared with 8s 6d to-day. Views respecting the deplorable condition of the labor market of the Rand are corroborated by the American Consular reports. A communication from the United States Consul at Johannesburg Bays.»—" Never in its history has South Africa suffered more acutely from depression than is the case at the present time. To-day the whole country from Johannesburg to Cape Town is in a discouraged condition, and storekeepers in all the towns are complaining of exceptionally dull business when there should be the healthiest signs of revival. This depression is not confined to one place alone. From inland and port towns the same reports are received—retrenchment by the Government and commercial firms, increase in bankruptcies and in tho number of unemployed, scarcity of money, decrease m the value of property, and too much competition. The President of the Associated Chambers of Commerce pf Sooth Africa recently stated : \' It is impossible under present conditions to forecast what South Africa trade in 1906 is likely to be.' The failures reported in 1905 aggregated 2,37 L For the first two months of the present year the number was 426. They have almost doubled in the Transvaal for the first two months of the year as compared with last. It is claimed by many that the Imperial Government are largely to blame for this state of affairs. The suspense caused by the attitude of English Ministers in regard to Chntese- labor and the uncertainty regatd£*S;the Sv^ap:-o£ . the. Uian^jsal

and Orange River Colony are having a' serious effect upon commercial interests. It is feared in many quarters that the worst is yet to come." _ Whitsuntide in England saw tho gatherings of the representatives of many institutions in which the working and lowermiddle classes arc chiefly concerned, and it k interesting to consider the magnitude of these organisations. The total funds of co-operative societies, friendly societies, trade unions, building societies, post office and other savings banks, etc.. amount at the present tame to about £40*7,000,000, including houses in the possession of wageearners and others of small incomes, it is probable that the total property of the poor amounts to about £450,000,000. The various societies and institutions referred to 's*™ » total memberehn) of about 50,000,000, and although thisfiguro by no means stands for 30,000,000 individuals, it is clear that a considerable proportion of the population have a small interest in the I property of the nation. How small that interest is can be realised when it is ? T ™*> that tho total capital of the United Kingdom is as much as twelve thousand millions sterling, of which the £450,000.000 referred to' is therefore less than 4 per cent. A few persons, a wrv few, possess tho bulk of the national land and capital. The savings of the masses are so small m relation to the total accumulations of the nation that were thev suddenly to disappear the bulk would soarcely exhibit diminution. For tho I greater part the British people mow upon, hve in, and work with the property of a relative handful of their number. ! The Rev. R. M. Julian, of Burnley, England, has reprinted sotttf addresses which deal very forcibly with the social evils of the. borough in which he labors. Burnley knows not only the poverty of want, but the poverty of thriftlessness. There are cases where love and care fail to keep tho wolf from the door, and the homes for whose, misery drink and gambling are responsible. * Of the low lodging-houses of Burnley he gives a distressing account:—Only recently I spent a part of one night in visiting with others, and under the care of tho police, some of onr low lodging-houses. \t Mas one of the three lodging-houses where women arc admitted. We went into the room where the " married " people slept. Only • one room, and that not a large one. There were eleven beds, with eleven couples in them. The beds were so near together that a hand stretched out from one wonld touch the next one. There was no partition, not even a curtain, between these beds. There was no window open, and the air even at that early hour of night was indescribably bad. "I cannot picture to you the scene; there was not the slightest attempt at decency, while the smell of the place was in my throat for . three days sifter. In one of the beds together with the father and mother was a baby, and in another a child of three years old. There they slept in this reeking atmosphere, and there they were growing up in "such scenes. Advices to hand respecting the strike riots in the early part of .Tine among the Mexican miner* state that the trouble arose iu the Greene consolidated copper mines at Cananea. where the miners took possession of the mines after a battle in which it is reported that a dosien Americans and upvrnrds of fifty Mexicans were killed. It was reported that the mining camp was set on fire, and that the Mexicans used dynamite to blow up the smelters and mills owned by the Greene Company. The strikers then attacked the company's lumber yard, and killed the superintendent in charge. According to one report, the entire police force of Cananea. consiting of ten Mexicans, was killed. The trouble arose over a demand made by the miners for an increase of wages. Colonel Green© addressed the men, and. endeavored to pacify them, but the miners opened fire. Governor YsabeL, of the Mexican Province of Senora, hurried to Naco with State troops, a,nd was met there by a force of American Rangers from Bisbee, after which he wont to Cananea, Further advices from Naco from Cananea state that the Mexicans burned property valued at 250,000d01, including the company's lumber yards and general offices', and then dynamited the powder house near the Senora Hotel in order to secure arms and ammunition. A fierce battle with the police occurred t&erc, several being killed on both sides. There were 50,000 strikers. The Americans barricaded Colonel Greene's residence, and armed it for purposes of defence. The Presbyterian Church close by was also filled with Americans, and barricaded. A special train took a hundred armed Americans to Cananea, and the trouble was-shortly after ended. More familiar, but not less terrible, is the description of child-life at Burnley. Two hundred and sixty-seven die in the first twelve months out of each 1,000 born. And what of those who survive' A large proportion of the mothers of Burnley work in the mills. Their children never know a mother's care, and if they grow up to swell the ranks of the incompetent and the profligate, who shall blame them? If, after the " half-timer" stage, when they rise at 5.30 in the morning to work in the mills until 12.30 as a preparation for afternoon " school," they grow to a stunted and.unlovely maturity, with whom lies the responsibility? It "is a reproach to our great cotton industry that so much of it is based upon the work of children and the denial of home life, to thousands of women. Recently the Housinc Committee of the Birmingham Corporation visited Germany. Everywhere they found the dwelling-houses of the artisan classes were in a beautifutly clean condition, and that " house pride " appeared to be more evident than in England, for in none of the poorest parte of ihe cities and towns did they see any of the conditions of tilth and dirt in the bouses, nor of dirty, ragged children in the streets, that aro met with in the lower class tricts in Birmingham and other large English cities. These conditions were in some measure due to the greater care and thrift displayed by the German working man. The houses themselves appeared to be incomparably inferior to those in English towns when the amount of accommodation and the lighting, ventilation, and air space surrounding the house were taken into consideration. In the towns the flat system was prevalent, and a much larger number of families in German towns live in onel'ooni houses or tenements than in England. As a rule most of the German towns show a higher death rate than corresponding towns in England. Dr Horton, the eminent Congregational divine, in the course of a recent address on the evils of sweating, said that sweating came into existence about the early part of last century, and they must see to it that it went out in the early part of this century. It was the result of a change from the home industry to the factory system. Sweating was specifically work given out to be done at home, to reduce the expense of having it done in the factory. It was, iu short, flesh and. blood pitted against machinery. The necessities ot the poor compelled them to this cruel competition. The " sweated" had no skill originally, and took up any employment they could easily learn. He found them doing work of various kinds, producing luxuries like cigarettes, and necessities like match-boxes, tailoring, and underclothes. Perhaps there were not a dozen in that congregation whose clothes were not made by sweated labor. He looked at the buttonhole of his coat; perhaps that was made by a woman who had been paid a penny an hour. He did not know, but he would endeavor to he sure in future that it was not so. Further, his coat and their underclothing might have been used as bedclothes by the the sweated person. That was a penalty for sweating. The great sweater was the public; all demanded cheap things. The remedy would have to be on a large soak, the first thing being to arouse and keep roosed the public conscience. They wanted England to he as much shocked that 2£d waa paid for a gross of matchboxes as against slavery in Africa. '' Instead of thmking gold so precious, they must learn to think of the man and woman, as precious. Education so that every child should be prepared with a trade was a remedy; a wages board and inspection and registration of the outworkers were also suggestions; and if these remedies threw a number of women out of employment, then a great voluntary society shoukl be formed to help the dispossessed workers. As Cibrtstiare they were called to remedy sweating as much an. to send the Gospel to the heathen, and to live jan» &ve_3