NOTES AND COMMENTS ON LABOUR QUESTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12910, 5 July 1905, Page 1 (Supplement)

NOTES AND COMMENTS ON LABOUR QUESTIONS.

[ex artisan.] A'meeting of delegates of all unions in and around Auckland will be held in the Tai-' loresses' Hall on the 13th inst. to consider what action, _ if any, should be taken to celebrate next 1 Labour Day, -which' falls on October 13. Surveyors are at- work ill the Catskills, New York, laying out what will be, when completed, the largest brickmaking plant in the world. The new plant when erected will employ over 1000 men, and turn out 1,000,000, bricks a day. The Japanese Government has issued an order 1 forbidding more than 100 Japanese labourers taking passage from Japan to' Hawaii on any one steamer. The rule in the past'for several years has-been that not more than 500 could go on any one steamer. English emigrants, to the number of 1045, sailed for Canada on April 26 on board the Dominion liner Vancouver, with-the Salvation Army flag at the masthead. The emigrants were gathered by Salvation Army officers, and the majority are workmen. All are paying their own passage, and many are supplied with sufficient capital to make a start in the new world. , Suits for damages, aggregating 1,000,000 dollars,- have been filed in the State and Federal Court at Denver, Colorado, by the United States Reduction and Refining Company and a number of Cripple Creek mining companies against the Western Federation of Miners and its officers. : The complaints charge the defendants with unlawfully conspiring to injur© the plaintiffs by preventing the mining and shipment of ore. ' The New York State Department of Lab-our-reports that the workers of that State are better organised than those of any other State or country in the world. Members of labour unions in Great Britain and Ireland number 1,902,308; in Germany, 1,276,831; in France, 715,576; and New York' 400,000. The ratio is one to each 18 inhabitants in New York, one to 22 in Great Britain, one .to 44- in Germany, and one to 53 in France. , .

■At the last meeting 0 the Carters-' Union two members were fined £10 each.for unfair practices and breach of rules. The union held an exhaustive inquiry into the cases, and the decision arrived at was unanimous. The alleged unfair practices consisted of turning out early in the morning before _ the time stated in the award and running their fellow workmen. The secretary stated that he had repeatedly warned the men of the risk.they rah without avail, it is hkely - to come before the next sittings of the Arbitration Court as well. The decision of the United States Supreme Court in regard to the New York bakers' ten-hour lawjwing unconstitutional is taken very, seriously by the American Labour press. t:L bus; labour hal ', d says the National Labour Tribune, and means that from this time on the trade unions will be forced to depend on " moral suasion" to extend the of the shorter workday. In the opinion ot.the Cleveland Citizen it "ranks with the famous Dred-Seott decision as well as the celebrated Debs injunction case, if for no other reason than that the so-called right of contract henceforth supersedes the public police powers—-at least, so far as labour is concerned.

1 he committee of the London unemployed fund have just laid the foundations-of an institution which will, if developed, prove a boon both to the unemployed and employed. Labour bureaux have been established in eleven of the London borough councils, and the new venture— Central Employment Exchange, s 34, Victoria-street, e>. W. is designed to provide a means of inter-communication between the various bureaux, so that vacancies in one district may be filled from the unemployed of another district, without necessitating the wearv tramping which at present is the only resource of the out-of-work. It is a tragic commentary on the inefficiency of private enterprise that in the twentieth century there should be no machinery for enabling the worker to know where workers are in demand. Even for employers the right man is not always on the spot, and a system of labour bureaux linked up with the central office has long been a crying want.

. The Sacramento (California) Sunday Nows m a recent article dealing with the professional strike-breaker, who has been so much in evidence of late in American strikes, says: --" The professional strike-breaker is a new evil to society, and is deserving of universal condemnation. He has the respect of no one, and when his sen-ices are dispensed with his employer despises him much the same as an injured husband despises a keyhole detective, who, for money, reports the perfidy of an erring wife. He is a Hessian who for money is willing, to fight anybody's battle. He has no conscience, observes no code of moral ethics, and is a miserable parasite, who represents all that is contemptible in the human species. Men will quarrel so long as they exist, and combatants, when they are honourable men, whether right or wrong, leave the field of action with honour untarnished. But the contemptible scrub whose only purpose in life is to join in any quarrel, regardless of principle or honour, for the money there is in it, deserves no consideration at the hands of manly men. The reason for his being is beyond the reach of the human mind."