NOTES AND COMMENTS ON LABOUR QUESTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14819, 24 October 1911, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS ON LABOUR QUESTIONS.

UT ARTISAN. NOTICE has been given in the House of Assembly, New South Wales, to move to introduce a Bill to repeal that obnoxious measure, the Coercion Act.

Chiozza Money figures it out that in 15 years, while wages have risen in England little more than 12 per cent., food prices have risen by nearly 18 per cent., which means that real wages have actually fallen in the last 15 years.

On a list received of rents paid by each of the 175 unions which held th ;ir meetings during the previous year in the Sydney Trades Hall, there is one— bottle and rag gatherers—which indicates the spirit abroad among the whole body of workers for unity.

What we really want is not to afford chances for one man in 10,000 to die a millionaire, but for the whole 10,000 to live inn fair degree of comfort and prosperity. This is really the solution of the social problem that the whole course of events is bringing about.

The amendment to the Workers' Compensation- for Accidents Act, whereby domestic servants are brought within its scope, is to be commended. The Minister for Labour must be given credit for having made this Act a model for the rest of the world in respect of the amount which a workman may claim and for generally improving it ■

Somebody has written: "While wo boast of our civilisation, savagery is at our very doors. The most elementary justice in the distribution of wealth remains everywhere a far-off aspiration." Personally Ido not think that the said aspiration is so very far off realisation, for to-day it is thundering at the door c f the social conscience, magisterially demanding admission.

The claim that the Labour movement is definitely a religious movement is confirmed by Dr. Ingram, Bishop of London. The Bishop says that the Church of England wields no influence because it is still a class Church, and has not heeded the passionate desire for a Heaven on this earth, which is the basis of the Labour movement. Truth is at last get ting a show in high places.

If there is no minimum wage fixed for those working in British collieries, it is said that there will probably be a general strike to enforce it in which over one million miners will be affected. Should a general stirko of colliers take place many other trades will be affected through want of coal, and many manufacturers would have to close down, throwing thousands of employees out of work.

It has been suggested that in the event of a second ballot in Parnell the Labour party and the Opposition should join forces against Sir John Findlay. I heartily endorse the suggestion as being a rating quid pro quo for the shabby part the Government has played by putting forward Sir John Findlay against the Labour candidate— J. Mack. If it does go to, a second ballot, Sir John will hive cause to regret that he wasted his time. '

Every member of every union in the district will rejoice to know that the clerks of Auckland have at length got themselves* into line and formed a union. Many have been the attempts, in years past, by the Trades and Labour Council to orgmise them, for it was recognised that no branch of the wage-earning class needed it so much as clerks. However, success has at last been achieved, and I hope to learn that before the projected appeal to the Arbitration Court, reaches the hearing stage the membership will have gone up from 100 to 500.

Last week the Baptist Union of New South. Wales carried by a largo majority this motion: "That this Assembly, in. conjunction with the Australian Baptist Congress, takes the opportunity of expressing hearty sympathy with the workers of Australia and New Zealand in their just aims and aspirations lor a fairer distribution of wealth, tor greater equality of opportunity, lor educational and social advantages, for the extension of tho righteons principle of arbitration to the settlement not only of industrial but of international difficulties."

Lord Roberts has returned to the charge of Britain not being prepared for war. This time he declares that the question of defence, is interwoven with that, of social reform. It is truly lemarkible what an airing social reform is getting to day. The churches are saying thai the want of reform is responsible for sin; the medical faculty says it is "esponiible for disease, and now the soldier says a nation without social well-being cannot properly defend itself. As a matter of fact it is exactly as the Labour party .says get ye first social justice and all else shall be added unto you.

Non-unionists are now rapidly ring the unions in Great Britain. This is one of the results of the recent strikes, which will result in the men's grievances being redressed. The secretary of the General Federation of Unions report? that the Dockers' Union has enrolled over 30,000 new members. The Liverpool dockers have increased their membership by 30,000 during the past three weeks. The non-unionists among the lightermen have now nearly all joined the Lightermen and Watersiders' Union, while the National Sailors' Union have also had a number of non-unionists toe the line. John Ruskin erred in contending that "no machines can increase the possibilities of life." It is just what they have done. * Machines have revealed to us a marvellous universe. Without them we should know nothing of the stellar abyss or the unfathomable di-eps. By their aid space has been bridged, printing has made the means for knowledge universal, in brief, by producing a thousandfold in a thousand different ways the possibilities of the machine in ministering to man's enjoyment of a fuller and riper life are illimitable. The present trouble is the unequal advantages derived from the product of this world of whirling machinery.

A big Hoe printing press, controlled by five men, will do as much work in one hour as would have occupied the same number of men 40 days on the old hand press. A hand loom weaver produced 48 yards of shirting per week. It is said that by a recently invented machine a weaver by attending six of them can produce 2500 yards or more in a week. The power of the steam engines in use in 1887 was estimated to be equivalent to a* thousand million men. The probabilities and possibilities of this modern genie we were told would be to the advantage of the world's workers, socially and materially. But the workers' social and material millennium yet sleeps in the womb of time.

Labour Day! Throughout the world typical of that which is the base of all effort and man's progresswork. Its festivals and unique parades have become familiar and appreciated by Aucklanders, judged by the numbers who line the streets, even on such a wet morning as yesterday, to witness the procession. This year's display compared favourably with any of the past, and points the way to future possibilities, when Auckland shall have doubled its population, and every wage-earner in it shall be proud to wear his union button and march with his fellow unionists, not as yesterday, with 50 per cent of them, owing to vanity or apathy, viewing the procession from the foolpaths instead of being under their banners. One matter for congratulation is that the returns will pay a somewhat heavy bill of costs, and in all probability leave a surplus.