THE TRADES AND LABOUR CONFERENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12422, 11 February 1901, Page 4

THE TRADES AND LABOUR CONFERENCE.

The annual conference of delegates from tihe Trades and Labour Councils of the colony will he held in Dunedin at Easter. The mistake committed 'by these corifei'emcee in past years has been to attempt the discussion of far too. many questions, and we hope that when the new order paper is finally drawn up ct 'will include only the more important of the suggested motions. A great deal of time may be saved by the mere l-eaffirmin'g, without discussion, of resolutions carried at previous conferences. The delegates can, hardly have any fresh light to throw on the su'bject of the (Bight Hours Bill, for instance, and the position with regard to Old Age Pensions, again, has scarcely altered since last year. In another column we publish a list of some forty subjects suggested by the Councils <6f Canterbury and.Otago for. inclusion/in t-ae order paper, -and probably Auckland and Wellington will supply forty more. The conference occupies only four or five days, and from the forty suggestions already made we could select ihal'f a dozen which would easily take up the whole .time. At leasit a day, we imagine, will be needed for the consideration of the proposal to federate IS'ew Zealand with Australia; even supposing the conference, confines itself 'strictly to the effect of the .union on industry and labour. The value and influence of these conferences wiould, we think, be enormously increased if they set themselves a less lengthy task. A few resolutions, carefully and tlioroughHy considered, would carry more weight with the puiblic and with the Government than thirty or forty hastily passed motions (merely affirming •'the desirability of thes ■cr>;that reform. We do not ask it he -conference to:-ex-clude general politics from its order paper,: but it is obvious that its opinion'on. the apprentice question, for example, will have more of the weight of authority \hmi its opincon, jay, -on the (population (basis of representation'. The difference is that between the expert and the lay view. enwion on the avbilraty -cuT-tailfnent v tit weuiui wcu'd bs inter-estirg ; but a pajW from the local Council on .the Industrial,

memt Act of last year should ba both, interesting and valuable. The conference i* specially qualified to deal with' certain poetical questions, and it should give- the greater part of its attention to those questions. An ideal order paper for its Easter* meeting would contain at -jaost fourteen items. Of these, twelve should ibe subjects of immediate importance to ths ■worlcere, and the other two might !be designed to afford mental -recreation to the delegates and to give variety to the proceeding;;.