ENGINEERING LOCK-OUT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18059, 6 April 1922, Page 7

ENGINEERING LOCK-OUT.

LABOUR RANKS BROKEN. 47 UNIONS BREAK AWAY. TO RESUME NEGOTIATIONS. ' By Telegroph—Press Association--Copyught. (Received 6.5 p.m.) A. and If.Z. LONDON, April 4. < The Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, and the Minister for Labour, Dr. T. J. . Macnamara, were engaged in a series of conferences to-day aiming at ending the engineering and shipbuilding disputes. To-night the National Union of General Workers and the National Union of Foundry Workers, the largest unions affected i by the engineering lock-out outside the Amalgamated Engineering Union, informed the engineers that they were willing to accept the employers' latest conditions for withdrawal of the lockout notices as a | fair basis for direct, negotiations. The breakaway of 47 unions from 'the i Amalgamated Engineering Union is the] sequel to the conferences with Mr. Lloyd I George. The position is that the repre- j snitatives of these unions will immediately lesume a conference with the employers, j who are considering the cancellation of the I lock-out notices, leaving the Amalgamated Engineering Union to fight alone. The Amalgamated Engineering Union has pro- j tested vigorously against the action of. tho other unions. I

The ballot of members of the Federation of Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades involved in the shipbuilding dispute, which is distinct from the dispute which concerns the Amalgamated Engineering Union, resulted in rejection of the employers' proposed reductions of wages by 87.026 votes to 26.451. The National Joint Council of the Labour Party and the Trades' Union Congress has offered to mediate.

PUBLIC AID FROM STATE £332,000,000 IN 1920-21. GOVERNMENT'S DEFENCE. Australian and N.Z. Cable ABSoci&twn. (Reed. 6.5 p.m.) LONDON, April 4. In the House of Commons Sir J- R*es (Unionist) moved for the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into eipendi'ture on public assistance, the cost of which has risen from £25,000,030 in 1890-1 to £332,000,000 in 1920-1. The motion pointed out that, excluding unemployed, 30,000,000 out of a population of 48,000.000 had received public assistance in some form. Mr. E. Hilton Young. Financial Secretary to the Treasury, emphasised the vast difference in the conditions in the periods which Sir J. Rees cited. He pointed out that the most expensive social services were war pensions, old-age pensions, and health and unomplovment insurance. These were of recent origin, and no member would suggest the discontinuance of them.