NOTES AND COMMENTS ON LABOUR QUESTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13030, 22 November 1905, Page 1 (Supplement)

NOTES AND COMMENTS ON LABOUR QUESTIONS.

BY ARTISAN. The number of employees in the Commonwealth Postal Department is 10,393. At a conference of master bakers in Melbourne recently the Federal Master Bakers' Association of the Commonwealth was formed.

, Last year the hours of labour of about 43,000 workpeople in Government factories and workshops ;in Great Britain were reduced to an average of 48 per week. V

American papers prophesy that " the greatest coal strike in history will take place in the United States on the expiration of the 1902 agreement," about the end of this year.

An employer gi'ving evidence before the Tariff Commission, proudly boasted that Australians were equal in designing ability, and also in manufacture, to any other mechanics in the world.

The Federal Government do not. intend to come to any decision about sending delegates to England to the conference on shipping laws (proposed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies) until the Navigation Commission presents its report.

The San Francisco Building Trades Council lias adopted resolutions calling on American workmen to pledge themselves not to purchase or use any products imported from China. This is retaliation for the Chinese boycott on imported American goods.

~ The German Statistical Department is preparing an important work on the insurance of workmen against non-employment. Fifty German towns will send their views on this subject. Reports will also be collected from foreign countries. " The results will be presented to the Federal Council with a view to ultimate legislation.

One of the attractions at. a recent Labour Day celebration ,in America was a prize of a gold chatelain watch to the most popular young woman 011 the grounds between the ages of 16 and 25". The contest was decided by popular vote By those attending the celebration, each person being given a ticket, on entering the sports ground.

The Mayor of Hull informed a press representative on September 28 that, negotiations had just been concluded with an American company for the establishment in Hull of a large manufactory, which will give employment to 1000 men. The nature of the business is withheld, but- it. is said to lie the first of its kind out of America. The site has been purchased.

Asked the reason why lie doe* not join the American bosses' anti-union (or "openshop") crusade, the manager of the ColeDavis Shoe Company says:—"l find that, many of our best, customers demand the 'union label,, and I do not propose to lose their trade through standing for an abstract principle that means nothing to me. I have; no criticism to make of the policy of my competitors ; they can suit themselves, but I want. th» union label in my business and I have taken the necessary steps to get. it."

Referring to a labour-saying appliance for cane-harvesting, invented and worked by Mr. 'Mann, near Cairns, the Trinity Times says': — It. is simply a mechanical loader worked-' in conjunction with horses and sledges, and for one thing it obviates the necessity for laying a lot of portable tramline?' A Cairns district fanner also says: — " Mr. Mann has done more towards solving the labour problem for sugarcane work with this simple contrivance than all the inventors and mechanics and economists put together."

Giving evidence before the New South Wales Arbitration Court, the secretary of the Sydney Coal-lumpers' Union said there were 898 members on the union's books, and upwards of 800 men who " followed the coal" were dependent upon the trade for a living, but many of them only got a job once in a month or six weeks. These men did nothing between the periods of work, and he did not know how or where they got. their tucker. The union was anxious to secure a better distribution of work, so that all the men should get an equal share, but- the employers had objected.

Sir Richard Solomon, at a meeting of the Transvaal Legislative Council on September 5, had to say Mint out of 47,000 Chinese, 110 fewer than 21,205 bad been recorded as wilfully absent from work! People are asking who is going to pay for the extra cost of policing the mines and protecting the white population. The cost is about £2500 a month. A deputation,which waited on Sir Arthur Law ley on September 6 told of the panic which reigned hroughout the country districts. So great was the terror that if a band of Chinamen came along they were given everything they wanted. The Cape Daily Telegraph, which was formerly in favour of the Ordnance, now points out that the importation of the Chinese, lias done nothing for South Africa, for, it says, the greatest, distress and : stagnation prevail everywhere, and things are going from bad to worse.

Labour Day of < the year 1905 (says the American Exporters and Importers' Journal for October) will long be remembered •by workingmen and employers as. one fraught with more brilliant prospects for the immediate future of both than any other Labour Day since the-holiday was established fifteen years ago. Ordinarily it has been celebrated with strikes and other labour disturbances, in operation all over the land, with workingmen suffering from the failure to draw their usual wages, and employers equally suffering from the failure of their factories to turn out their ordinary productions. When Labour Day of 1905 dawned there was not within the confines of the United States of America a single disturbance of any significance. Of course there were some small and unimportant strikes in I progress, but none that had a. national influence, or which threatened the prosperity of the country. Labour and capital were at peace, and this fact added significance to the celebration of the day. That, the present peaceful condition of labour and capital is j due, more than anything else, to a recognition of the principle of arbitration is certain. J The great building strikes in New York, j which paralysed the industry iso long two years ago, were settled by arbitration, and to-day there is a boom in the building trade of the metropolis such as was never before witnessed since the foundation of the great American Republic. The last great strike was settled in the same way, and hundreds of instances might be recalled in which arbitration came to the rescue and calmed the threatening waters.