NOTES AND COMMENTS ON LABOUR QUESTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14867, 19 December 1911, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS ON LABOUR QUESTIONS.

BY ARTISAN'. The question of the hour is i Will the trams be stopped daring .the Christmas holidays? Something for Dominion workers to remember : " Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them." Tho municipal elections,' held in Adelaide (South Australia) on December 2, resulted in 12 Labour candidates being retained Tho New South Wales Amalgamated Railway and Tramway Service Association has decided that all clerks employed in the railway service must become members of the Clerks' Union. Mutton and beef aro now a luxury among the French working classes, but the Government is proposing to reduco the duty on horseflesh, the yearly consumption of which in Paris amounts to 14,500 tons. Mr. T. R. Johnson, Chief Railway Commissioner in New South Wales, has taken steps to compel unionists to pay their subscriptions to their unions. The Commissioner understands that this is good business. In a recent publication, " The Jubilee History of near Sydney, there appears an account of the establishment, by Governor Hunter in 1796, of what we in New Zealand fondly imagine to bo of our own manufacture. He established a system, compounded of conference, arbitration, conciliation, and compulsory awards. Then, as now, the awards were broken by both parties, and so fell into disrepute.

The United Labourers' Union in Melbourne have demanded from the Metropolitan Board of Works wages as follows — Navvies, 9s a day; miners, 9s 6d; quarrymen, 9s 8d; lead jointers, 12s; earthenware jointers, lis vent . builders?, 10s ; pitcher setters, 10s. 6d; workers in wet, Is a day extra. Overtime, time and ahalf; Sunday, double. Should an unsatisfactory reply be received the union will take steps to enforce its demand.

The industrial organisation of the workers, says Eugene Debs, is of the supremest necessity. In this vital requirement they aro still far behind. The craft union is almost a century out of date. It keeps them divided, and they fall an easy prey to their masters. The industrial union, reacliing out and bringing them all into active, intelligent, and harmonious co-operation with each other, is the union, and tho only unkm, that develops power and leads to victory.

It is the primary business of trade unions to see that wages rise with the cost of living. So is it the business of Governments to see that the cost of living is kept aa ,low as possible, while the standard is maintained .as high as possible. National expenditure on unreproductive works, all wasteful action on the part of incompotent Ministers, tends to increase the cost of living, adds to tho cost of production, and mutiplies the difficulties which a country having a high standard of social well-being has in competing industrially with other countries where tho social conditions aro lower.

" Labour made some little advance at the elections by electing four representatives in place of one, Mr. D. McLaren, who held tho solitary honour in last Parliament. Who shall say, knowing he represents seven-tenths of tho voting power, that the working man of this Dominion desires to dominate society. From the evidence, ever since the Labour movement came in after the strike of 1800, he has certainly shown much modesty in not attempting to push his own class into power. Much depends upon how these four I Labour members acquit themselves, as to whether, at the next elections, there will be a more pronounced display of modesty or the reverse.

The Railway and Tramway Association of New South Wales interviewed Mr. McGowen, the Premier, last week, asking for the establishment throughout the service of an eight-hour day and a minimum wage of Bs. Mr. McGowen, in reply, said he believed that on the railway and tram services the Government should pay the same rates of wages as were paid to similar employees of any private firm. In dealing with men's pay no consideration should be given to privileges enjoyed. The Government believed in a minimum of 8«, independent of any privileges. He further stated that the * House would be asked to pass an Eight Hours Bill early next year.

The recent election in California has demonstrated beyond doubt that the judgement of the American Federation of Labour in the matter of great reforms has been excellent and praiseworthy. Two of the great j measures, woman suffrage, and the; initiative and the referendum, just made law by the voice of the people of California, have been energetically supported by organised Labour for many years, and it is to the credit of the American Federation of Labour that it initiated the national movement for the latter reform. In 1890, the American Federation of , Labour endorsed woman suffrage, the endorsement of the initiative and the referendum followed in 1892, and in 1893 tho Postal Savings Bank received tho National Government, while the States aro wheeling into line for tho other two great measures. The agitation for all threo measures has been pressed without a let up for years, and organised Labour can bo justly proud in the part it lias played in bringing them into operation.

Mr. W. A. Veitch, tho newly-elected member for Wanganui, who had to resign his position in the railway service before he entered upon his election campaign, and give up tho presidentship of the Railway Servants' Association, published a farewell address to members of the association in the Railway Review of the 15th inst. Among other things, ho said : " I have entered tho political field on the side of Labour, and before this is read it will be known whether I have been successful or not. Whether I win or lose, I will have no regrets on account of having sacrificed my position in the service for the cause. Some must bo the pioneers of the Labour unity movement, which has come to stay, and who can be better fitted for the work than those who have been the leaders of the unions in the past? Returned to Parliament or not, I hope to be able to do something for the furtherance of the scheme for uniting all the workers in one strong organisation, which I have mads the objective of my efforts in the future." The address throughout has a manly ring, and, from what I have heard, is characteristic of the man. Well, as he deserved, he has succeeded in being returned, and if Dame Rumour speaks truly, when the new Ministry is ; formed, he will'be offered the portfolio of Labour, which must needs be a change for the better. Anyhow, it cannot be for worse.