NOTES AND COMMENTS ON LABOUR QUESTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14849, 28 November 1911, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS ON LABOUR QUESTIONS.

UT ARTISAX.

How times and men change. One never hears about "freedom of contract" in industrial * circles nowadays.

The New Zealand Federation of Labour contains 21 unions, 18 of which arc unions of miners— and coal..

The Tailoresses' Union is in a better condition to-day, numerically and financially, than during any, period of its history. This is undoubtedly due, in a great'measure, to the zeal and ability of its secretary.

Napoleon once remarked that "You must keep the people at work or fighting if, you want to keep the people in slavery, for leisure gives reflection, and reflection gives discontent, and discontent gives liberty and ends slavery."

Carmen in London struck recently for a 72-hour week. In. a London suburb 15,000 women and girls in jam factories struck for a minimum wag© of 9s a week. With these and other such instances in Britain,-why wonder that labour is in revolt! * '

Last week the members of the Waihi branch of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, had a conference with the mine managers of the district concerning a revised claim of working conditions. The matter stands adjourned for a. fortnight lor further discussion and consideration.

Giving evidence, before the Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation Commission at Washington (U.S.), workmen witnesses declared that men when over 40 years of age arc unable to obtain new positions in the industrial world in the United States. Machine production feeds itself on youthful humanity. \

Mr. Keir Hardie computes that there are in England 2,700,000 trades unionists with reserve funds of £4,200,000. In France, one-eighth- of the whole working population is unionised. In Belgium, the unions are relatively the richest and most powerful in Europe. The United States is honeycombed with labour organisations and big federations. ; t

The 40 Labour members of the House of Commons decided to send £50 each to the treasurer of the party, representing their salaries for the quarter from April to Juno lastsalaries which were paid before the payment of members of the House of Commons came into operation . The British Labour ,party thus luckily comes into"an unexpected £2000.

The working class is the only class that is not a class. It is a nation. It represents, so to speak, the body as a whole of the which the other classes only represent special organs. Those organs,^ no doubt, have great and indispensable sanctions, but for most purposes of government the State consists of the vast labouring majority. Its welfare depends on what their lives are like—Frederick Harrison. ••■ '■' :: -'.-.- •'"' ''• '"/■:'■ .■.Vr-'f' ':':

Kuskin in his " Crown of Wild Olives," defines what is not. a living wage, 1 thus.:— - " It is not a living wage ii a man's wages are not enough to enable him»to k » save enough to enrich and complete his 'Home gradually with delicate and substantial comforts, and to lay by such store as,shall be sufficient for the * happy maintenance of his old age (rendering him independent of the help provided for the sick and r indigent by an arrangement presupposed) and sufficient also for the starting of his children in a rank of life equal to his own. : If his wages are not enough to 'do this they are unjustly low."

In the engineering workshops of the .Government railways, -the casually: employed fitters and turnersand they are all such when starting, and ; often : remain , such 'for years—are paid 9s 6d per day, while the engineers', award provides that men at similar work shall receive lis from private employers. This is not what - might be looked for from, a Liberal-cum-Labour Government, which is supposed "to set an example to out side \f employers. *It may be : said these casual men have-certain privileges which are not given to men in private employment. "lis a mere ■ supposition, for these are only conceded to the-permanent staff. *

Economic conditions <in all countries, dictate what women can do. In the- colonics these conditions , are such that girls and women - seek to compete -with men only ,in lighter occupations; such as shopassistants,, factory workers, clerks, etc. If ever ' our economic conditions should become ~ like those .■ prevailing - in - European countries -women and girls would be found working barefooted -in the fields, cutting crops ..as in Germany and, Switzerland, sweeping the streets as in Austria, bricklayers' labourers, as in Finland or an in Britain, • chainmaking, or working alwut coal-pits. We don't want to see our women folk at such drudgery, but "in iiairness when they compete with men they should be given " equal pay for , equal work." They have come to stay as competitors, and -no arbitrary J methods >> of men, will avail to keep them from poaching on what men wrongly hold to be -their domain and theirs only. - Let the Clerks' Union recognise this,, and in place of keeping them'out, endeavour to obtain for them equal pay, for this 1 inequality is an evil which vitally affects both men and women in the industrial world of workers. ■ ':'.' !>'•> .:-■■

It is. the world's drudgery, and that alone, that is being so 'highly organised and massed, and economised. The plainest commonsense • suggests the expediency of this, and all the tendencies of s the industrial world are 'hurrying it forward. That men are being drilled into machines seems very.dreadful, and if you make them nothing but machines it is 'dreadful enough. To think of people spending 12 or 14 hours a day filling matchboxes, making buttonholes, driving in rivets of boot soles, or ironing, is indeed horrible. But only let the hours be short and leisure abundant, and there is nothing horrible about it. On the contrary, in all the manufacturing and commercial affairs of life," the more closely men approximate to machines and the mora thoroughly they arc systcmatised into co-operation with the men and machines around them, the better in every way. A man who toils is not more of a drudge because he toils as a factor in a great system. A man who has to walk ten miles along a "lonely road will not find his way the wearier because if ho marches in step with a hundred other men. The'way will be shorter and the labour less irksome. Mechanical precision of duties, and association with large bodies of toilers do not increase the hardship of toil, but rather tend to lighten it. Union is strength, system is economy. It is by union and system that industrial forces are made effective. By system, by union, and organisation you certainly mitigate drudgery, while you extract from it the utmost it can yield. .Nevertheless, as a fundamental fact with very few exceptions, the work by which people, live is move or less mechanical, and more or lestin the nature of drudgery. " ■■■ f: