MASTER AND APPRENTICE BILL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVIII, Issue 11446, 8 December 1897, Page 3

MASTER AND APPRENTICE BILL.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —May I enter a demurrer to your spproval of the alterations which it is proposed to make in the above Bill. It is stated that the proportion of apprentices to journeymen is to be left to the Court of Arbitration to fix, and that the same tribunal is to ..hAve the power of limiting the term of indenture. But, as I read the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act of 1894, the machinery of that Act can only be brought into operation in the case of a dispute between employers and organised bodies of workers. Now, if, the fixing of the proportion of juvenile to adult labour under the new Act is to be left to a Court which can only oe moved to act on the appeal of a workers’ union, or of the employers, it appears to me that the Master and Apprentice ,'Bill will fail of its operation in just, those trades where its regulation is most urgently needed; namely, where the workers are a mass of disorganised .-units, instead of a well-organised body, able to enforce fair and legitimate demands. Take the tailoring, dressmaking and kindred -trades, which it will, I think, be generally admitted (except by employers) stand as much, if not more, in need of regulation in the matter of apprentices as any other branches of industrial work. These workers are scarcely organised at all, and it looks very much as if their lack of organisation were to be the means of depriving them of the wholesome regulation they so mucSi need. Of course, it may be said that their remedy is to organise; but organisation means funds, and subscriptions would he hard to get from the mass of girl and women workers, a large proportion of whom are not paid at all, and the rest Ijut very poorly. I trust that if the proposed amendments are likely to have the effect of rendering the Bill inoperative whef,edits work is most needed you will draw, public attention to it, and prevent another legislative cripple being placed uppn the Statute Books of the colony.—l am, &c., JYNL