THE LAMB MOVEMENT

Evening Star, Issue 19349, 8 September 1926, Page 3

THE LAMB MOVEMENT

£By VraauK,] Bikf contribution* on matter* with referenca to the Labor Movement are Invited. THE UNEMPLOYED AND UNION SECREARIES. Mrs Evelyn© Bonnot, writing on tho question of unemployment, says she I knows of several cases of farm workers who wore receiving £2 10s per week and found being replaced by immigrants at 15s per week ami found; also cases of married couples, who were receiving £3 per week and found, being rep la red by immigrant couples at 3Us per week and found. 1 am of opinion that Mrs Beunot would have some difficulty in proving these statements; but if they can bo proved it docs •>, not speak well for those farmers who are taking such advantage of those who arc unfortunate enough not to he able to find any employment. If Mrs Bennet’s statement about farm workers has nothing more to justify it than her statement about trade union secretaries drawdng as much as £8 and £lO per week, then I am afraid that not much reliance can bo placed on it. 1 had no opportunity of inquiring about the case of farm workers, but L could and did make some inquiries about tho salaries of union secretaries, and I find there arc about ninety-eight unions registered in the Otago and Southland industrial district, and (after careful inquiries) L am safe in saying that no union of workers pays anything near £8 per week. There may be at the most about half a dozen of these secretaries getting somewhere near £5 per week. On tho" other baud, 1 find that there arc some .secretaries that have four or five unions each, and thc.ro is one with five unions that do not yield him more than £3 per week, and one with the samo number of unions, who, from tho lot, receives less than £5. There arc also sonio unions that pay their secretaries from £5 to £l2 per year. So that, if Mrs Rennet’s advice is I allowed of appealing to union secretaries to provide funds for the unemployed, and tho secretaries gave all that their finance?! would allow, it would not find full employment for one man. Some union secretaries may ho earning a fair living. hut 00 per cent, of them are not paid as‘well as they should be.

SIR lAN HAMILTON’S GOOD WORD FOR THE MINER. Addressing; tho Barnet branch of Die British Legion the other night, General Sir Jan Hamilton, referring to tho coal stoppage, said this latest civil war was so horrible in every way that everyone tried to put the responsibility on to others. Everyone was taking sides except the King and tho British Legion, who had no side. “I, for one, cannot believe that it pleases tho miner to ho told several times a day that ho is a fool because he blindly follows his own federation official. Ho would like to answer, if ho could, that ho is doing just what ho was prair-6d for doing in the warfollowing his officer, even if he did think ho wasn’t exactly a Napoleon.

“Then, again, don’t you think some people arc rubbing it in a hit too strong about tho Red gold? There is no condition attached to it. Gold is gold, whether you call it yellow or

red. The Romans, who wore quite outstanding for hard common sense, had a proverb to the effect that money doesn’t smell. The Russians, who arc not at all like tlio Romans, have sent what would give the mining districts about 6d each for a fortnight. “ Well, what would you do if someone gave you a sixpence? If you were a man you would drink a pint of bitter and then give the tuppence change to your wife. If she’s a woman she’ll buv tuppcnco worth of ten, which means that within a week of (lie Red gold coming here Mr Winston Churchill will pouch half af it.” * -*■ « « INDUSTRIAL UNITY. The Auckland Trades and Labor Council hold a special meeting last week to consider a basis of industrial unity adopted by the open conference called by tlio United Minoworkers of New_ Zealand at Wellington at the beginning of August, and issued by a joint committee of the Alliance of Labor and the Trades and Labor Councils’ Federation Executives. After a long discussion it was resolved that “This council endorses the basis of unity submitted in the joint report considered this evening, and recommends tlio unions to adopt that basis.” It was also resolved to co-operate with the local district council of the Alliance of Labor in securing a good attendance of executive members of the local unions at a mass meeting, to bo hold next Tuesday evening at the Trades Hall to hear the basis of unity explained by Messrs J. Roberts and A. Cook from the Wellington headquarters of the Alliance of Labor. ft would bo interesting to know if Messrs Roberts and (look have got the authority of the whole of the Trades and Labor Councils for the campaign they are undertaking, or is it the executive of the federation that is undertaking it without consulting the councils that form tho federation, ft will bo remembered that some time, ago Mr Roberts was in Dunedin on tho same errand, but the matter fizzled out, and it was thought that was the end. It seems that tho Alliance of Labor will not he satisfied until it controls the whole Labor movement.

* , * * tt A STRIKING I’ROPOSAL. Mr J. 11. Sharrock, a Liverpool financial expert and shipowner, makes the suggestion that instead of wasting their substance on out-of-date methods of warfare sonic JO,OOU,UOO British workers should pay As a week to a “ British Workers’ Saving and Investment Association.” In this way JL‘2,500,000 would be available each week for investment. In ten years, not reckoning profits or any increase in thn value of the investments, a fund of £1,000,000,(100 would have accumulated, and at 4 per cent, the dividends would amount to £52,000,000 a year, and bo available for pensions and for provision for widows and children and those struck down helpless on life’s journey. “ It is obvious from those figures,” says Mr Sharrock, 11 that the British workers may become—if they will—the owners'ami controllers of all the main industries in the country and the British Empire within a generation. Capital would become one with Labor and Labor one with Capital, and the foundation would bo laid for the building up of a real co-operativo commonwealth within the British Empire.” At first sight this looks like a good proposition, but the question is: Can Mr Sharrock find 10,000,000 British workers who could possibly pay 5s per week without depriving themselves and their families of the necessaries of lilep Then, even if the British workers could get 10,000,000 to subscribe Is per week it would mean £500,000, which, if properly invested, would soon make, the workers independent. Can it be done? «■•»** UNIONS ARE NECESSARY. 1 start out with the conviction which I have held all my life that the workers, having been disinherited of their natural birthright (the land), must combine if they are to have a life worth living. H is to such combinations, some of them rough and ready and even at the time illegal, that whatever democratic progress wo have made is duo. In the past strikes and even riots have played their part and had their influence in the long struggle fW

economic justice, for political power, and for popular education. A hundred Years ago the people had no other moans of making their ambitions known and their wishes respected; no other means of breaking down the repressive Toryism of the time. 1 find no f: It with the uSo of crude methods when none other was available. But all the ■same f believe very strongly that the influence of strikes and violence has been greatly exaggerated. The moral effect of mass opinion has certainly been very great and very valuable, but basic factors in raising and maintaining the general standard of life in this country are invention, the spirit of enterprise and adventure, the power to organise, and the skill and industry of the workers. With any of these in abeyance, strikes; ns the continuing coal deadlock shows, must he worse than useless, because non-existent wealth never could and cannot now bo divided. t do not advocate and never have advocated giving up formally the weapon of the strike, because there is no guarantee that oppressive conditions will never again be imposed. What I. want to do is to invite attention to alternative methods of advancing the interests of the workers. My view is that education and the franchise have between them rendered the strike oldfashioned, and that better results for the work-el's can be obtained through political action, a closer co-operation with the organisers of industry, and the application of the workers’ savings to productive rather than _to destructive purposes—to the expansion rather titan the restriction of the wealth-creating processes, and to the furtherance not of pauperism, but of the economic independence of the workers as a class. I want to whisper this question into the ears of those trade unionists whose brains are still free to do some independent thinking. Is it not possible to devote your spare cash, or the cash you are sparing weekly, to some better object than _ periodical strikes against conditions imposed not by hard taskmasters, but hr the stem logic of world conditions?—“ Scrutator,” in * Liverpool Post.’