LINES ABOUT LABOR.

Evening Star, Issue 12732, 5 August 1907, Page 2

LINES ABOUT LABOR.

Mr Lloyd George, in the course of a recent address in the City of London, said the scarcity of money was very largely due to good trade. The trade of tho country was often compared with that of Germany and the United States, but Great Britain was securing a larger share of the international trade of the world than any other country. If they included the carrying trade of the world Great Britain had a share greater by scores of millions of pounds in international trade than Germany and the United States put together. —(Cheers.) This country was paying higher wages than any Vrolcctionist country in Europe. The Government were conducting a special investigation in Germany, because it was very important that they should know what was going on. Some of the returns which had been received showed that in the building trade, the engineering trv.de, and the. printing trade higher wages we.ro paid in this country than in Germany, despite some of the things that were printed in some quarters in this country.—(Loud laughter.) In Germany in tho building trade men were paid a little over 27s per week; in this country they were paid over 365. So much for the broken-down, starving old Frcet-mde country! In the engineering trade the German workman war, paid 24s Dd per week ; the English workman was paid 3.1s sd. And in the printing trade the workman was paid 26s 8d in Germany, and in this FrectTade countrv 345. (Cheers.)

Tho authorities at Covetit.-y have been devoting attention to tho nu-rstion of street, trading, under the Employment of Children Act. and have drawn up regulations accordingly. Some of the instructions bear rather a humorous aspoet. Hero is one : "You are strictly forbidden to'fight or call other boys or girls names: to annoy people in the streets by retting in their way or by shouting: to write, or draw anything on the pavement or wall'- • if a policeman tells you to move out of the way or to stop shouting, yon must do so at once."

Miss Squire, a. ladv inspector of factories, recently gave evidence before the House of Commons Committee inquiry into the alleg-xl evils in connection with homo work'. Tito employment of children, she said, was very prevalent in the lace trade in Nottingham. It was said that children started work at four years of age, and she herself had ere-n children working at six years old. Children twelve yeans old were found earning several shillings a week on their own account. —Tho Chairman : Does the help of the cliildren tend to bring down the prices paid for homo work ? Witness : Yes. Much of tho work could hnrdlv bo done even by the very poorest unless the work were done bv the children sitting with their mother.--'-Miss Snmres said thn.t 2d was paid for making boys' knickers, from 4d to Of] for men's coats, and from 5d to 8d for trousers. Snoilt work was charged airain-st tho outworker. In one case a coat for which 4d would have been paid for making was spoilt, and the worker was charged 8s for it.—For finishing ;v dozen pairs of trousers 2s. 9d was paid, or 3s 6d for superior work. The price paid for making shirts was as low as 6d a dozen. She fo'iind one widow who had two young children to support making shirts at a dozen, and site had to provide Iter own cotton. Tier earnings varied from 5.s to 8s a week. Corsets which sold at Is 0.'.-d to Is lid wore made bv home workers for 10yd a dozen, and in this way a woman was able to cam la M in three days. A remarkable movement has bcon"und"rtalven bv charitable associatiuns and railways in the United Sl.r.!»v to put an end to the evil of t-amps. Startling figure-., are given to show the. suite; cd by railways from the hundreds r.nd thousands of vagrant*-, who wander ovvr the cw.;nt.ry. and ate held reiin.-nc-ible foe tram wrecks, the burning of s'alions and other property, and many murdcT-s. A national commission is to be appointed to w-.;\k f -r the passing of stricter vagrant laws. t ! !c enforcement of the law, and the edu«atiort of housewives to refuse aid to wanderers. Probably rents will be sent to Great Britain and the Continent to study tho methods of handling such problems abroad.

Kansas City, Missouri, hits taken the lead in solvire? tho servant-girl probk-rn. which has been the enrw of national ;■:■■:< tion for many mon.Uns. Eight w>:e-v : worn out with tho- effort to" maint?.i'> .■■ rorns of capable servants, have formed .-■ dub. The respective families of the membcrs aro served with meals at the club. and at tho end of each mo-nth the exr.-i—r.-8 shared jointly. ' One rnemhar r-f the

;lnb directs its affairs, a chef and two :-.,- ustonts are employed, and each famihturrrißhes ita own tabic linen and rilv.-r. fhe club has beoomo so successful tho; many additions applications have b> • o made, and there is every indication thai not onlv has the servant problem hen. solved in Kansas Citv. but that a n>. w and most practical institution has hern the result. Mr Upton Sinclair, in his latest novel ' The Industrial Republic' which is a study of America ten vears hence, says :- " I believe that the economic protect •:-. whirling us on with terrific momentum towards the crisis: and I I'-ok to see th---most ereential featurop. of the great tramformation accomplished in America within tine year after the Presidential election of 1912." Mr Sinclair savs he speaks not as a dreamer, nor as a child, but as a scien-tii-t and a prophet. Bv an Industrial Republic ho means an organisation for th<> production and distribution of wealth. wlkso members are established on a basis of equality, who elect representatives to govern the organisation, and who receive the full value of what their labor produces.

The wheelers at tho Hebburn pit (New South Wales), who were taught a sharp lesson thectherday by the miners offering to take up tho wheeling, were again reminded on July 17 that they cannot set all the industrial laws at, defiance. Thirty-three of them were before- the Court to-dav. charged with absenting themselves from work, and were fined in stuns ranging from 10s to 40s, with costs. A Chinese laborer now undergoing imprisonment for theft and desertion fi-on the Johannesburg mines informed the magistrate that he left his work with the intention of walking home to China, and that he hoped to reach it by following the lailwav line!

On the question of Capital and Labor, the Hon. J. R. Sinclair thus expressed himself in the Legislative Council the other day: "Do not let us part with the -principle of arbitration. It proved equal to effecting the solution of one of the gravest and most difficult of disputes—the Alabama claims. Mr Adams, in the spirit of conciliation and in words that ought not to be forgotten, had assured Lotcl Russell that there was no fair or equitable form of conventional arbitrament or reference to which America would not be willing to submit. It is true that a largo number erf those who pay and of those who receive pay could hold the balance evenly without the artificial fulcrum of the Arbitration Court, but there are still somo of each body who are not yt sufficiently educated to bo entrusted with unrestricted freedom. Hero we are all workers, and cannot be graded as they wer.j Dot so long ago in England by Disraeli into two nations—the rich and tho poor. The sympathies of employer and employed in Nc'v Zealand ought not to bo far'apart. They aro separated, I trust, by a surely narrowing span, not by an abyss."

Tho Board of Conciliation appointed Tinder the Industrial Disputes Act, ISO 7, to investigate the dispute between tho longshoremen at Montreal and the Shipping Federation, after considering all tho iacts" and with a view to securing pejce and harmony, recommended that the increase of 10 per cent, already granted by the shipping companies remain tho rate for the present season. In order to secure a constant supply of labor until the close of navigation, and to safeguard the public interest, the Board also recommend that a bonus of cents an hour.over the abovo present rates be paid after July 1 to longshoremen who work to the end of tho season. For tho season 1908 30 cents (15d) an hour is recommended for day work and 35 cents (17J,d) for night work. The Board remind

both parties to the dispute that tho supremacy of Canada's national trade depends solely on the confidence inspired in its stability. The avoidance of disturbance of tlie national flow of commerce at the port of Montreal means tho continued prosperity of the business interests of the country, and the Board therefore express the hope that both parties will accept their recommendations. The rinding is regarded as a substantial victory for the men, as it practically • concedes all they asked. Mgr. Bruchesi, Archbishop of Montreal, was chairman of the Board.

Melbourne has been shocked at the revelations which have been made of tho wages paid in the starch trade. In the interest* of tho workers in the starch industry, the Wages Board were summoned, but' were unable to arrivo at a proper conclusion. Under the Victorian law it is necessary on the part of a Wages Board, in determining the rate of wages to be paid the workers, to fix tho standard by what is known as the reputable emj lover clauseThat simply means that if a Wages Board were summoned to arrive at a conclusion with regard to wages, they would be very largely influenced in their "decisions by the wages paid by, say. tho most reputable iirm in that line of business. Wlien, howover, the starch trade was inquired into, it was found that wages all round were so ? low that the Board got rid of their difficulty by referring the matter to Mr Justice liooci, who sat as an industrial appeal court. The p.'oa put forward by the starch manufacturers waste tho effect that the grade paid l'..i badly that it was impossible to pay decent, wages. Tho starch business i., not P;iy«'i:, hi ;-pite of the fact that the protective duty is very high. What reisoa there is in keeping up by artifieal means a trade v.-i:\-h can only pay starvation wages, while i'.i ihc same time people have to pay twice as inucli for their starch aa they otherwise woaid do. is a puzzle that only Protectionaiv. roinpvtont to solve. " Thirty shil•n:gs a. week for llu> father of a family 's i."t. <-i:ou_;ii t;> keqi tho bodies and souls of !he family together. Even now the award '..- !<;;, suiliciout. and Parliament will have to step ii:.