The Labour Conference.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 970, 3 October 1890, Page 17

The Labour Conference.

THE UNION COMPANY’S ULTIMATUM. UNIONISTS AND FREE LABOUR. The Labour Conference met at the Parliamentary Buildings at 10 o’olook yesterday morning. The Hon George McLean, accompanied by his private secretary, Mr Ross, was present. There was some delay at the outßet owing to the absence of Mr J. A. Millar, who, it was explained by Mr Hsher, was somewhat indisposed, in addition to whioh he had an appointment for that morning. At half.past 10 it was decided to proceed with the election of a chairman, Mr McLean remarking that, although he was single-handed before a formidable gathering, he had no objection to anyone who might be proposed. He moved that Mr D. P. Fisher, as President of the Maritime Counoil, take the chair.

Mr Meyer moved that Judge Richmond be asked to take the chair.

Mr Waldegrave, the secretary, said Judge Richmond was on his way to England. Mr Brown having seconded Mr MoLean’s motion, it was pnt and carried.

Mr Fisher, in taking the chair, expressed regret that the employers had not shown a desire to be represented on the Conference, seeing that the labour delegates were willing to discuss everything that might be raised in the most liberal manner.

Mr Browett moved that the representa. tives of the press be excluded, and obtain their report from the offioial shorthand writer.

Mr McLean hoped the reporters would not be excluded. They were not going to quarrel, he hoped ; they would be a happy family. There was nothing to hide. He remarked that the Union Company had not taken any noticeof various misrepresentations, among which was the statement that a steamer’s lights had been put up in the wrong way, whioh was impossible. Captain Highman : I’ve seen it done. Mr McLean : Captain Highman has seen many things. After a short discussion, in the course of which Mr Winter, Mr R. P. Johnson, Mr Sand’ord (of Christchurch), and others objected to the reporters being excluded, it was decided that they be allowed to remain.

The Chairman read the list of employers who had been invited to attend (the conference, and remarked that the Railway Commissioners were not named.on it. Mr Waldegrave -said the Commissioners had not been invited, , ' i

The replies of the various Employers’ Associations and other bodies invited to take part in the conference were read. Notice of acceptance was received from the various labour bodies, the Northern Steamship Company, and the Union Company (Hon G. McLean). In reply to Mr R. P. Johnson, Mr Waldegrave said no invitation had been sent to the Railway Commissioners since the previous day.

Mr Winter and Mr Johnson said they understood that Mr Waldegrave had undertaken to invite them.

Mr Winter moved and Mr Sandford seconded, 11 That Sir Harry Atkinson Be asked to invite the Commissioners to be present, and urge upon them, the necessity of being present.”. Mr McLean thought it was inadvisable to invite the Commissioners, seeing that they were part and parcel of the Government. Mr Sandford said it had been stated in the House and out of it that the Commissioners were not part of the Government. Mr Mills asked why the railway servants had been invited if the Commissioners were not to, be represented.

The Chairman said the probability was that he was responsible for the railway servants being inyited, seeing that ho had furnished a list of bodies to the Hon Mr Hislop.

The motion was put and carried unanimously. The Chairman called upon Mr McLean to state the position of his Company, Ifir H. C. Junes thought it advisable to appoint a permanent chairman, and moved that the Rev Mr Habeas be asked to ace'*' T. that position. thll kind 3 . decided not t 0 tak ' a °y ste p of who waa ei ved » h ! .‘, ug ? pon * iain ß. said there ft in whioh less had been TdTk r° °5 ns , e Citation than in this one. He believed also, that the Company had the sympathy of every man who walked off their =m F 3. a nose men were paid ud to the dav tu C y left, and no ope was deprived of his money. At tfio present time, while the Company wpjild insist on retaining the men they pow nad with them, and those who had oome back, they were just as ready to take others back, aud to receive them whenever there was a vacancy. But he must hold to this principle, that those men who had come to the Company’s aid and were in Bfcs service now should be retained. There was a perfectly good reason for this, whieh was tfiat there was no reason why one section Of the community should not work with the other. In the past it had been done, on the understanding that the non-Union men should be put ashore as soon as a Union man could be obtained Briefly reviewing the history of the Company, he remarked that it had been conduced to a great extent as a sort of Government concern for the benefit of the Colony, and that the Bflrnings used for tho development

of other trades rather than for the private pockets of the shareholders. They ha‘d not taken advantage of their monopoly—their grain freights to Australia. were suob as no other company would carry at. They had paid as high as 2s 3d per ton for discharging in Sydney, and in New Zealand they paid about Is 2d ; taking that and the storage, what did the Company makeS? As to faros’ he asked that they be compared with any others. The Company had not ground its men down, but had alwaya tried to keep them satisfied, as they had been, except when the revision of rules, with a consequent rise in wages, came round. As to that, he had always believed in paying fair wageß, and in each aide supporting the other. As to fighting capital in New Zealand, where was the capital ? Returning to the story of the present difficulty, "he said the labour bodies in this Colony were affiliated with those in Australia; they were catching the Union Company this way and that until the Company was bound to take aotion in its own interest. A stage came at which any further demand meant a collapse. He pointed to the position at which the Unions had arrived—where the employer, in ease of a difficulty between, say, a seaman and a steward, tried to shift either the one man or the other, was threatened by each Union in turn. “So that it is absolutely neoessary,” he said, “for us to get back the command of our ships and hold the command of them.” Well, in Sydney, before this strike in New Zealand began, the Company could not get their boats unloaded ; they were not allowed to unload them with their crews, and when the Company—being compelled to unload its boats in some way—employed nonUnionists, their men were called out, and very reluctantly. Mr Millar and the other New Zealand leaders called the whole of the men out. The result was that the Com. pany started to man its ships with all the energy it could. It was not going to lie down and die. Now, they were running their boats as usual, but he might say that the Company was only running fortnightly boats to Melbourne and Sydney. That was what it would have done in the past at this season of the year, if it had wished he make money. The Company had plenty of men—more officers and more cooks and stewards in the service, and coming back, than were required. It was the flower of New Zealand, the young men of 22 to 28, who were filling the boats now. He remarked that the seamen in the Company’s service, in addition to their £7 per month, had been receiving an average of £1 14s per month for overtime. The Company had no quarrel whatever with the trades, they had never been at variance with any of themen; yet efforts were made by the trades to stop the Company’s bread and its meat. Was that right ? He did not think so. He denied that the Company had a ooal monopoly, and said he himself had not a share in any coalmine, The miners, however, took up a most unjustifiable position. They said they would supply coal to anybody but the owners of it. Why should they do that? The Union Company had no quarrel with them. His idea was that the principle of all business should be to give and take, so long as the employers did not show a grabbing spirit. Concluding a speech of about half an hour’s duration, Mr MoLean said he feared he was wearying the meeting. (No.) The country was suffering very much from this strike. But the main point was that the light of Union and non-Union men should not be denied. Long ago ho had asked the Unions why they should impose a prohibitive entrance fee. Where was a man to get £3 or £4 to pay for entrance ? Some time ago he tried to get a respectable settler’s son into the Union. There was nothing against him, but it took 10 months to get him into the Union. Did not that e.eem a strange thing that the Chairman of the Union Company could not get a man of unblemished character work at shovelling coals into the Union , Company’s steamers 1 He believed that the effect of what he had suggested would be a great deal of good to the Unions—that they would be able to reconstruct and work upon different and better lines. He did not want to crush Unionism, for Unions were not “ corners in labour ” as they were in America,, and did a good deal of good. He asked the labpuy delegates to put aside their restriction against non-Union men. He was perfectly sure they would recognise that the Company oould not part with the men now working for them. They would take back the men on strike as vacancies oould be found, and there would be no bitterness at all against those who had gone out. Iu Dunedin, recently, when there w&8 difference with the lumpers, there • a feeling at all against the mo>> n ? struck, nor would there * W T , aa< ; . „ now. If what fnoAkher'fnTkhe'Tr!*'-' ”" ttie y cou| d work «»»it N ew Zealand and of themselves, (Applauae-) J 1 Millar said the whole diffioulty Caused by the Shipowners’ Association the right of the offioers to affiliate with the other Unions. He contended that just as the Union Company federated with the shipowners in Australia, men had a right to federate with those of other colonies. He denied that the Maritime Council had refused to withdraw from the Australian Unions, and said they were never asked to do so. He did not suppose they would if they were asked. He com. bated Mr McLean's statement that the flower of New Zealand was working the boats, and instanced the Te Anau’s first crew as consisting of incompetent and inexperienced men. As to free labour, the Company might employ such as it liked, but oould not compel Unionists to work with them, and he did not think they were going to compel them. Some Unions had not got a rule against that, but where there was such a rule it would not be broken. He likened the posilion of tho workmen to that of Mr McLean in the Union Company. Mr McLean put his money into the Company and drew dividends, just as the sailors put their labour in and drew wageß. As to the revision of rules to whioh Mr MoLean had referred, experience in all matters made alteration necessary, and with reference to the last revision, when it was sought to set up eight hours for seamen, at that time the men were working 16 or 17 hours a day without overtime. Ho reminded Mr MoLean that in the present case tho Maritime Council

“tackled you in the full strength of your manhood, and did not wait until others had got you down and kicked you.” Referring to the case quoted by Mr MoLean in which he had a diffioulty in getting a man into the Union, Mr Millar said that was four or five years ago, when a three-fourthß majority was required. In any case, the Union Company could not expect to rnn the Union. If bad men were put into the ships the Union very soon heard about it. As to the Union being conservative, it was clear that the Union had the great bulk of the seamen in this Colony in it; otheiwise how was it that tho Union Company had to sorape up all sorts of men from one end of the Colony to the other, and had not now got one-tenth competent seamen in its service ?

Mr McLean : That’s not correct. Mr Millar was prepared to show it. With respect to the prohibitive entrance fees, no Union in New Zealand, so far as he knew, charged £3 or £5. In 9-lOths of them the entrance fee was 2s 6d.

Mr MoLean : What do you charge ? Mr Millar: £2. He proceeded to argue that the seamen had a right to regulate the price of their shares, so to speak, as the Union Company did; and he pointed out that many of the restrictions now in existence had been imposed at the request of the Company. He ridiculed the idea of Unionists and non-Unionists all working together, and said he could say for tho men who were present, and who represented close on 63,000 men, that they would amalgamate much moro closely, in order to prevent sweating. While he admitted that the strike had been conducted in an amicable manner, he took exception to some things the Union Company had done, such as barricading the wharves. Had the Union men been disposed to go to extremities they had been irritated sufficiently. He instances cases in point. As to going back to work with non-Union labour, bethought they never would, though he could not speak for other societies than those he represented. On behalf of the seamen, cooks and stewards, he declined in toto to accept employment for any person while they had to work with non-Unionists. He declared that what had caused the strike in New Zealand was the fact of the Union Steam Ship Company employing nonUnion labour in Sydney. He had done hia very best to prevent a conflict bv arranging for the crews of boats going to Australia to unload the cargoes. He had all along, when the trouble was impending, informed the Company of all his negotiations. Even when the trouble with the Wairarapis came, he told the Company he would not call out the coastal boats if the Company would not employ non. Union labour in Australia. That was to be considered iu the evening, and next morning there were advertisements in the Otago Daily Times calling for seamen, etc. He put it to any reasonable man what the Council could do then. Finally Mr Millar said the Union had always assisted the. Company in maintaining discipline, and tbo men were more afraid of the Union tiara they were of the Company. The suggestions of Mr McLean as to Union and nonUnionist men working together was an insuperable barrier so far as the asamen were concerned.

Mr R. Seymour, replying to Mr MoLean, said the Union Company was too much of a “ governing body.” He denied that the Company had not taken advantage of its monopoly, and expressed an opinion that theywonld not have made concessions to the men if the pressure of the Union had not beenbrought to bear upon them. The Union, he pointed out, maintained discipline and good conduct in the service. The idea that the men should work alongside non. Unionists was not one that could be entertained for a moment. They oould not do it, he said, and he recounted how a few days ago he saw some of ‘‘the flower of New Zealand” handling cargo, to show that as they did not do the usual amount of work it would bo unfair to put experienced men on the same level. He likened the non-Unionists to “weeds, not Howers." (Caughterr) Ac~ half-past 12 the Conference adjourned for lunch, and resumed at 2 o’clock. [Left Bitting.]