LINES ABOUT LABOR.

Evening Star, Issue 12925, 13 April 1908, Page 2

LINES ABOUT LABOR.

Mr H. Gladstone, speaking in the House of Commons on .February 21 on the Sweated Industries Bill, said that Tariff Reform was irrelevant, to the consideration of tht< Bill. 31c would like to remind the House that tho evils they sought to remedy existed in the very heart of a protected country in as gross and glaring a f Tin as they did in England. He. had in his possession a memorandum published in Geunany on the Exhibit ion of Home Industries opened in Berlin in 1906. The average hour's wage in the homo industries represented at tho exhibition worked out at about 10 pfennigs, nr a'mmt Id, in the ca.-e of work which reipiiied no special skill. That would yield a piiiful wage of about 6s a week. For making a lady's mantle tho workers received 2.J. while the middleman earned 7e, and the selling price was £5. Let the House consider the subject entirely apart from party fe. ling and fiscal controversies. The result of State interference in the case of factorieswas that the conditions ia factories were incomparably better now th:m they were fifty or sixty years ago, though tbey were .still open to improvement. * * * * * # * It, was reported to the Lambeth Board (London) of Guardians that efforts to obtain a situation for a blind girl shorthand typist had failed, and that unless something were dune the would ha.ve to go into the workhouse. Mr Baldwin said tho Guardians had spent £l2O on the training of the girl, but now she was efficient she could not get woik. The Guardians decided to ask the VrefiM to again give a little space- to the fact- that the Guardians would like to find a >itu;uion fur a smart, blind shorthand typist. Surely wealthy London ought to find an opening fur a girl of this stamp.

One William T.ooth made a claim for £l5O against tjhe Great Northern Steam Fishing Company, of Hull, for compensation fur the death of his illegitimate son, \ v.lio lost his life on a steam trawler owned ; by the company. The circumstances were ' so peculiar that the County Court Judge (Mr Dodd. K.C.) felt called on to comment very severely on tho man's action.! His Honor said that the case revealed some extraordinary circumstances. This was a case in which a young servant was led astray by tho husband of her sister, and a child was born: They were all apparently respectable people, and the child' was adopted by a married sister who had no children of her own. 'The lad was eventually put to sea. and now that he had ic«t his 'life compensation was sought by his father, who had done nothing for him. If the law allowed him th<- money, lie must have it, but tin law provided as to the extent. He had based his claim upon an alleged allowance, made him by his sou of 5s a week—a claim which was altogether exaggerated and laVe—and he had brought the whole miserable .story into court, for the sake of getting money. He awarded plaiutitf £lO, from which solicitors' costs would have to be ■1 -ducted. -::•**■:■:■** * It is a <:rer.l mistake /declares the 'Ber-H-er T,i,-hlatt"i to believe that the derma:! v.vi-kman is better off than the English uvker. As a matter of fact, his lot 'h'C-s r_"-'- even compare with that of his Erghsh equal, who is better off in every way, especially as regards wages, rent, fend home comforts. * •>:- -::- -::-*-:;•* The vicar of St. Peter's. .Mancrcft, Norwich iKnc.l, summoned the women workers at .Messrs Hindu's silk factory, who had been on strike, to the church, and announced Mnt. he had been successful in sottlinrr the dispute, whereupon the women sang the Doxology. * * * -'r « * * The United States .Supremo Court has declared unconstitutional the Act of Congress prohibiting railways engaged in interstate oommen.c from discrimination against members of labor organisations in matters of employment. Tho Court held that a master mechanic of the Louisville and Nashville Bailway had a right to discharge an employee because the latter was a member of a labor organisation. * * ->:- # -:<• > * A THREATENED LABOR WAR. Our London correspondent writes: Unless the conference now being held between the employers and the representatives of thy trades unions connected with the shipbuilding industry of the northeast coast of England results in nn amicable sottl-mont of tho disputes between employe;-.-! and employed, we are face to fac" with what must be a most disastrous war betwe-m Capita! and Labor. The J o '-"/;™ •"•"'} shipwrights, numbering some 4.00} men, have been on strike for the pa,;t month against a reduction of wanes, and now the engineers have decided that sonne;- than submit to a reduction of 2ld per cent, on piece rates, and Is a week reduction in time wages, they will also cease work forthwith. 'The. men who have come to this decision are members of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, the Uaited Machine Workers' Society, and tic Steam Engine Makers' Association. 'Miey comprise, a very la rue proportion of iji- men employed in the engineering slops on the north-east coast, and when th\\- lav down their tools the masters 1.e.-,. r .-,]y {. vo CO „ rFP: . OMea to them: they ir:;r either " C!lvn ; n - or •< c l ose ( l own /" To lb" latter event, of course, all the t-i o-r tiades encitrcd in the engineering s.ioi.s—tli-rc are twenty two altogether—w:!l be thrown out of employment. Tf the .pnn-el results in a lock-out no le«s 7-103'.- will be infected, and in event ot tne industrial war spreading to this extent the weekly lo^ s to the rum will ayerntre out at something like £140.000. This figure- is arrived ar 7„, tho following estimates of the men variously employed m connection with the shipbuilding 'industry:— Strike Wages. Pay. 14.000 engineers £2.1.200 £14,000 16.000 minor industries... 24.C00 ]2,f,00 4.000 shipwrights 7,750 2,'c00 00.000 men painters, plumbers, gas workers, braziers, laborers, etc. —at rough average wage of 25s 1 45,000 9,000 Total weekly loss to men, £133,450. Even at the present *=me the distress in Junderland and other adjacent towns is yerv acute, owing to the recent depression in the shipbuilding and general engineering trades. In normal times Vnc shipbuilding and engineering aids of the north-east coast employ about H5.0C0 mmi, but of late at least a" third of these have been either out, of work or doing short time. In Sunderland alone there :v-c over 12.C00 men walking the streets workl.-W, apart from strikers, and the local workhouse contains 500 more inmates than it did at the same time last year, the number to-day being, over 1,300. Tn South Shields, Tyncmouth, and Newcastle the situatiom though not so bad as at Sunderland, is bad enough to cause grave concern, and if the threatened lock-out takes place the position will be desperate indeed. _for of the men affected not more than £0 per cent, will be in receipt of strike-pay. and must depend on private charity and the rates for daily bread for themselves and their families. And the spending capacity of the remainder will be reduced to about one-third of the normal, wnKji will mean ruin for hundreds of tradesmen m the affected district if the trouble lasts any length of time

HARDSHIPS OF HOME WORKERS HUMAN SLATERY. o/\. th <? , Uo "r? of Commons on February lb the Select Committee from last session to inquire into the pay and condition of home workers resumed their labors. Mr Douglas, a cardboard-box manufacturer, was the first witness, and his attention was called by the chairman to the evidence of the very low rates of pay. He re plied that that was f OT very" low-grade work. Most home workers bad been in factories, and took home work after marriage. Tho low pay was often duo to the fact that when in tho factories they had not troubled to learn better class work. A cardboard-box maker ought to earn not less than 2s 6d a day. His own hands earned on an averago 3s to 4s a. day. Less than a shilling a gross was very bad pay. Tho Chairman: We have- had evidence of people being jjaid.twojrjence a. gross.

Witness: Not for cardboard boxes, f surely? | Mr Douglas added that one of the greatest hardships was that the homo workers had to fetch and return the work, thus losing a lot of time. He thought they ought to fetch the work themselves, so that they could get instructions! and avoid mistakes, but that the work when finished should be sent for by the employer. The licensing of workers would go a. long way towards removing the evils that existed. The -Chairman : What do you say about the wages board? Witness : I am afraid, owing to the great variety of work, it presents tremendous difficulties. If you could fix a standard of wages, it would be a grand thing for the employers. It would stop a rare lot of cutting amongst ourselves. There was a shortage of really ciheient cardboard-box makeia. If a woman told hiin she could not cam any mone}' at existing rates of pay he would have to give her more or run the risk of losing her. -Mr Holmes, police court missionary, produced a costume made by a mother and her daughter, working together from nine in tho morning to half-past twelve early next morning. They were paid Is Id for each costume, the selling price of which varied from 29s to 39.--. A wages board was the only hot>e, in his opinion.

A PROFIT-SHARING CONCERN. The large establishment of Taylors, ; Limited, of Choapside (London) and Branch : road mills. Batley, is conducted on profit- ' sharing principles, and on February 17 the sixt-*yith annual meeting was held, and presided over by Mr T." C. Tavior,'m.P. After a tea by tho " house," there being alarge attendance of the operatives, Mr Tavlor, who, with tho members of his family, had just completed a tour of the worldgave a limelight exhibition of photographs taken in many lands, besides a leeturette. The local paper savs that "the proceeding throughout were" marked bv much enthusiasm." Discussing the serious business of the gathering, Mr Tavlor said that once more they had u> complain of the dearness of raw materials. They had not been able to get the extra price for their goods which the raw materials had cost liiein. They had never made so much cloth in their mills as they had during 1907, and yei, the balance of profit was eonsiderablv l-ss than for ISO 6or 1905. He was glad {■> know that the workers' share in the business was gradually increasing from year to year, and he hoped this would continue. I: they were an ordinary dividend-making company they would be justified in equalising the dividends by paving in a good vear less than they had made, and in a'bad year paving inorc than the price of the shares. Their business, however, was run on different lines, and if thev were to have a large dividend when they had made more money, they must rlso have a smaller dividend in u year like this, when thev had made less money. After paving 4.£ per cent. 011 capital, they could p'ay a dividend to labor and capital combined of 74 per cent. Did they expect anything better? They could have known little about the conditions of trade if thev had expected anything more tluwi that," Thev were disappointed, were they not? Ho wondered what they would have thought of thev had had no dividend at all? Some manufacturing concerns, sound concerns, had, owing i to the bad times we seemed to bo entering upon, paid less dividends or none at all"! lie congratulated his hearers that- it was possible in their case to pay such a splendid dividend as 12 per cent," on capital and i-j per cent, on labor. It might he said that tliis compared badly with "the 20, 30, and 40 per cent, of the cotton trade, or he might he told to look at the coal trade. ; Tho prosperity of the coal trade was one of J the leasons for this decrease in the dividend. The ..oal people were making the The woollen trade was probably on- ot the most stable industries in the cocntry. Lfe looked hopefully to the .joining year. Lie wa.s- very glad* that another tirm had come into line. Messrs Pearson, of Calverley, were now practising profitsharing. Ho hoped they would succeed. Any firm that tried profit-sharing deserved 10 succeed. This was a matter he was a.sived about more than anything else in Japan. One of the firms interested in the subject was one which employed more than j 20,1)00 workpeople. The Japa.ue.se were a I clever people, and they were going to try ito do all they could to prevent labor ! troubles. In conclusion, Mr 'Taylor said that he hoped by next year they would have got that 2h per cent.* hack again ; but he would rather have a small dividend with the excellent feeling they had amongst the workpeople than a big dividend with a bad feeiin g.—.'Applause.) •JAPAN'S INDUSTRIAL DIFFICULTIES. [F. A. .M'Kenzie, in the 'Daily Mail.'] I 7.,-day Japan is faced with two great ; problems—finance and labor. At the bo- ! ginning of the Russo-Japanese War the • Government instituted a new and extiaj ordinary system of war taxation, which ; made Japan the most highly taxed coun- | try, in proportion to income, of any on 1 earth. Taxes were instituted on almost j everything, even railway tickets not being i exempt. At the same time State monopo"- ! lies, such as the monopoly of tobacco, i were pushed forward io make great profits « for the Exchequer. As a result of these J measures the national income was in- ; creased from twenty-two to forty-two. millions. This taxation added serious!v to , ti>e cost of living. The burden was looked I upon as a temporary one, and was cheer- ' fully borne by the p'eople— who are among ; the most patient, p.t:i.,tie, and loyal in I the wr.rld. When the war ended the GoI vernment r.-solved to continue the extra I taxatun without abatement, and it, en- | dines to this day. It is now to increase the taxation, for even it is not enough to meet the r.c st of the new schemes ofiniliI fury, naval, and commercial expansion. ; The national income from all the regular 1 sources was last year forty-two millions, but tho national expenditure camo to well over sixty millions. In 1907 tho Government could fall back upon a substantial balance from the war issues and tho payment for the Russian prisoners. This reserve money is now largeh exhausted. The nationalisation of the railways has added to the financial embarrassment. Korea and Manchuria continue to bo heavy and increasing burdens to tho nation. The financial outlook fur ISO 3is far from favoiable. The military and naval leaders have reluctantly consented to a slight reduction in their estimates but the outlay in defence U still double visit it was before the war. Eminent financiers line Baron Snibusawa and .Mr Soyeda have in the na.-st emphatic manner warm-d the Government and the nation of the danger facing them. To meet the coming outlay bonds are to be floated in the home market, and there is to be considerable new taxation. Kerosene, sake, tobacco, and sugar are all to bear heavier burdens. Up to recently the home de.iciency could be made tin bv floating j foreign loans. This is jio longir so! I European money markets have "become uneasy owing to the threatening militarism iweaicd in the Budgets of the past two years. Chinese 5 per cents stand today at about 103: Japanese 5 per cents stand at 97. The most optimistic financier would not dare just now to propose a new foreign loan. Tho Manehurian Railway issue was an open failure, although only half oT the money really needed was asked for. The Japanese Finance Commissioners who were in Europe last year returned homo disappointed. "You can rest assured," one of them was told by a leading financial authority, "that Europe has not another sovereign to lend Japan for increased armaments." Tbs monetary difficulties have been increased by the' disastrous results of commercial speculation in tho summer of 1907, when large numbers of banks and institutions failed. The situation is such to-day that the Government will soon be faced by one of two alternatives. It must either reduce expenditure, and thus limit some of its cherished schemes, or it must find excuse for an aggressive campaign against its wealthy neighbor, China. It is this which may explain the Japanese breaches of the Open Door policy. The Government, no doubt, feels that it cannot afford to miss anything that would expand its commerce and improve its national income. iTo ba continued..)