NOTES AND COMMENTS ON LABOUR QUESTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13287, 20 September 1906, Page 7

NOTES AND COMMENTS ON LABOUR QUESTIONS.

BY ARTISAN.

Mr. Jas. Aggers, secretary of the Bootmakers' Union, has been indisposed for some time, but is now making » slow recovery. : *' "■.;,'* "

1 An exhibition of union . labelled goods will be held during' the American Federation of Labour convention in Minneapolis next November.

The several tramways unions in the colony are to have a conference in Wellington shortly, with the object of forming a federation embracing all the unions. ,

Labour Day Committee, is moving along with the preparations for the forthcoming celebration on October 10. - A number of trophies and subscriptions have been collected. . . -. v

The Coal Mines Act Amendment Bill is favourably commented on by the interested unionists' It seeks to provide disqualification of mine managers for accidents caused by negligence; and to give the right of appeal to the Court of Arbitration by the State coal mine employees.

The outcome of the conference betAveen the executive of the Labour Day Committee and the trustees of the Trades Hall building fund.is the appointment of Messrs. H. W."Brookes, J. Fawcufl, and Geo. Davis as additional trustees, and a deed of trust is to-be drawn up and registered.

After lasting 11 months, the strike : at Llanhilleth Colliery, the largest in Monmouth, has ended and the men have returned to work. It is estimated that the strike has cost over £250,000, of which some £30,000 has been paid by the Miners' Federation in strike pay.

The report for 1905, on shops and factories in New South Wales shows an increase in the number of factories and employees throughout the State. In the metropolitan area the factories increased by 97 and the employees, by 3519. This 'is the largest increase since 1900, and the report says "the very satisfactory feature of this increase is that females account for only 970, while the males number 2549."

A lady factory inspector giving evidence before the Home Office Committee, on the Truck Acts, said many women in Ireland knitted socks, stockings, or gloves in their miserable cabins for employers, for which they were paid, not in money, but in tea and groceries. The tea - was charged against them at the rate of 3s 6d per lb. They were supposed to earn 9d or lOd by -knitting a dozen pairs of short stock-ings-or gloves. N

Mrs. Neill is at present in Auckland making inquiries into the working and management of the St. Helens Hospital. A large number of workers are very much interested in this question, and both the Trades and Labour Council and the Independent Political Labour party have been moving in the- matter. The latter party are advocating that a board of management should be appointed, with a lady " chairman " to decide the admission of patients into the institution. The present system has proved very Unsatisfactory so far.

At a recent- meeting of the Sydney Labour Council ' Delegate Allen* of the Amalgamated Engineers, asked that the secretary be directed to write the Minister ." for Defence, urging that engineers should have served five years' apprenticeship in the general workshops and four years in the engine-room, before being allowed to qualify for the position of chief engineer on ships of the Commonwealth defence service. This was necessary, he said, in order to secure the appointment of Australian-trained men on the ships that will be wanted if the proposed Commonwealth naval defence scheme is brought into operation. The secretary was instructed to submit the request to the Minister, ,;,...■

The phenomenon of increased production and decreased demand for workers is world-wide in extent, and as a consequence the unemployment problem bulks more largely in the public eye with every passing decade. It is a state of things for which neither free trade nor protection has any remedy. Unemployment is as rife in protection as in free trade countries, and it is a significant fact that, outside our colonies, wherever Labour parties exist in protection countries they are supporters of free trade, as is the Labour party here in Great Britain. However, Ave are under no delusions in the matter. Protection has not solved the social problem either on the Continent 'Europe or in the United States of America, but neither has free trade done so in Great Britain. Labour Leader Keir Hardie.