THE WORLD OF WORK

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1847, 31 July 1907, Page 17

THE WORLD OF WORK

(MOTES ON LABOUR AFFAIRS AT HOAIE AND ABROAD. (Conducted by “Honestas.”) fSecretari vs of Trades Unions and Trades and Labour Councils are requested to forward for publication in this column items of interest to wage-earners generally and Trades Unionists in particular. | ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. “Irishman” (Palmerston North). You have been misinformed. _ Pete Curran never resigned membership of tlie Independent Labour Party. Some years ago, owing to pressure of work as a Trade Union organiser he resigned his seat on the National Administrative Council of that Party. “Socialist'' (New Plymouth).—Wisconsin lias the best organised Socialist Party of any of the Areeiiean Victor Berger, editor of the “Social Democrat,” Milwaukee, is its leader. Daniel de Leon is the editor of New York “People,” and leader of the Socialist Labour Party. Eugene Debs is the leader of the American Socialist Party. Gompers is President of the American Federation of Labour, a position he has held since 1883. He is not a Socialist, and only recently declared for independent labour rep rese n ta t i on.

The election of Victor (prophetic, name!) Grayson, the Socialist, for Colne Valley, is another evidence of the determination of the British V\ orker to choose the out-and-outer in preference to the milk-and-water (mostly water) Liberal-Labourite. The fact that the Socialist vote has been drawn almost equally from the Liberal and Conservative candidates is a further vindication of Keir Ilardie'G policy of strict independence of both orthodox parties. Colne Valley was ono of the first confl’.ituencies selected by the I.L.P. as likely to prove a successful battling ground. Air Tom Afann. now leader of the Victorian Socialist Party, was the first to break ground in the constituency. This was in ISBS, when the Labour vote in a three-cornered contest amounted to 1245, and the Liberal candidate was successluj, though polling 464 less than the defeated Liberal Jias done on the present occasion. Mr Victor Grayson is one of the most active of I.L.P. propagandists.

Labour (says Karl Alarx) is a peculiar expression of energy of the labourer's life. And this energy he sells to another party, in order to secure for himse’t the means of living. For him therefore, his energy is nothing but a means of insuring his own existence. He works to live. He docs not count the work itself as a part of his life, rather it is a sacrifice of his life. It is a commodity which he has made over to another party. Neither is its product Dm aim of his activity. What he produces for himself is not the silk that lie weaves, nor the palace that he builds, nor the gold that he digs from out the mine. What he produces for himself is his wage: and silk and gold are transformed for him into a certain quantity of means of existence- —a cotton shirt, some copper coins, and a lodging in a cellar.

Tlio Wellington Building Trades’ Labourers' Union has more than doubled 2ts membership during tho past two months. Mr Lyons, who was engaged by the Union as paid organiser for a period of six months, has more than justified his appointment.

Mr Ben Tillett, who will spend the month of September in a lecturing tour throughout Now Zealand, says, in a letter to “Honestas,” that ho found the Sydney coal lumpers worse off than the dockers of London, the latter being paid a certain sum for all time they are kept waiting for a job, and are not required to work more than twenty-four hours at a stretch, after which they are allowed twenty-four hours' rest. London dockers, also, are paid a higher rate for overtime.

Mr Jack AtcCullough and Mr James Thorn have put in an immense amount of work organising the agricultural workers of Canterbury. A good strong union has at last been formed, and aided by subscriptions front other Canterbury Unions, the new union has been able to file demands for the consideration of the Arbitration Court. These demands will come before the Court at Chritchurch on August sth.

The following clause is from the industrial agreement between the Dock, Wharf, Riverside, and General Workers' Union of Great Britain and Ireland and Messrs Cammell, Laird and Company: “Any grievance a workman may have in connection with liis work, the same shall be dealt with by the foreman in charge and the workman concerned. Should they not bo able to settle satisfactorily, the matter in question shall be submitted to the general manager and the workman's representative. All work shall continue during the time of the investigation.” Mr Victor E. Kroemer > was unanimously elected by the various branches of the N.Z. Socialist Party as delegate to the Socialist International Congress, which meets at Stuttgart, Wurtonberg, Germany, at the end of next month. Mr Kroemer intends to spend about eighteen months in Europe, and to examine into the tactics and policy of Labour and Socialist Parliamentarians in Germa.ny( Franc© and Great Britain.

At a recent conference of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, held in London, the following resolution was carried unanimously: “That this meeting of delegates, representing 106,(MX) members of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, strongly protests against the action of the Government in allowing troops of the British Army to be used in the interests of the mine owners of the Rand against the miners out on strike there, who are fighting against the attempt of the Rand magnates to oust white labour from the mines altogether, and calls upon the Government to take prompt steps to prevent British soldiers being so cm- ' ployed by bringing pressure on the mine owners to defeat their infamous attempt to oust while labour from the mines in the Rand.” Thus is the old sectional unionism broadening in spirit and bringing nearer the realisation of Industrial Unionism. According to a Parliamentary return Trades Unionism made a substantial increase in membership during the past year. Wellington takes the lead with sixtythree unions having a total combined membership of 9311. Waihi Amalgamated Miners' and Workers’ Union has the greatest individual membership of any New Zealand Union, the number of financial members being 1187. Fifteen employers' and thirteen workers' v ••>■••• j ('••'! to send in annual returns, and have had their registration cancelled. The total number of unions in the colony is now 274 with a financial membership of 34,978. There aro also 100 unions of employers with a combined membership of 3337. In the recent German elections, when the Socialists “seemed” to suffer _ a severe reverse, what long and romancing cables appeared in all our newspapers! Remembering this one fails to understand the complete silence concerning the results of the Austrian Parliamentary elections and the Alunicipal elections at Rome. At the latter, though their candidates were denounced from all the altars of the city churches, the Socialists captured twenty-five of the thirty vacant seats. In Austria, despite the fact that each candidate returned must be elected by a majority of electors voting, the Socialists won eighty-four seats, and are the strongest party in the House. Of this the cable man has been discreetly silent. A triuraph so tremendous left no loophole for the dissembling “news-item.”

But the cable has informed us off the bankruptcy of the Liberal-Labour member, J. Havelock_ Wilson, and this news recalls to my mind a similar situation in which the member for Middlesborough found himself in the early 'nineties. He had been A r ery active as a strike leader and in 1891 was imprisoned for six weeks on a charge of “unlawful assembly.” Always bitterly attacked by shipowners, they brought against him numerous lawsuits which resulted in his bankruptcy. On that occasion bailiffs were put in possession of Joe's house, and every stick of his furniture was sold by order of liis creditors.' The same day, however, his household gods were all freely restored to him. They had been bought in by txvo friends—Tom Alann and L. M. Johnson.

A deputation of N.S.W. Labour members interviewed Premier Carrutliers last week to protest against the importation of coal minors from the United Kingdom while a large number of mine workers were out of employment in that State. The deputation produced English and Scots newspapers containing advertisements stating that the New South Wales Government guaranteed employment at first-class wages for 3450 farm labourers, coal miners, and others. In the course of an evasive reply, Carruthers said the advertisement had no official status, and ho promised an investigation into them.

Two of the nineteen women elected to the Parliament of Finland are wives of male members of the Landtdag, as tho popular House is called. All the women nembers aro workers with hand or brain, or the wives or mothers of such workers. One was formerly a domestic servant and cook. Of late years she has become known as editor of a Socialist journal, and a persistent advocate of better conditions for servants. The ages of the tv omen deputies vary from 25 to 54. The Socialist Party is the strongest in the House, mustering seventy,

The Melbourne Trades Council recently carried a resolution calling for the nationalisation of the starch industry, and the secretary wrote asking the Minister of Labour to receive a deputation. Mr Harrison Ord, Chief Inspector of Factories, in a letter to the Council stated that it would he of no use to receive a deputation from the Trades Council asking for the nationalisation of the starch industry, as* the policy of the Government was antagonistic to such a proposal.

When Mr Haldane’s Army Bill was before the House of Commons, Mr <T. R. MacDonald subjected it to such masterly criticism as to win for him the praise even of the chief Government organs. It was left to MacDonald's own comrades to point out the weak points in the speech. “Drummer Smart (vho seems to be resuming his old place in the fighting line, which he vacated in 1900), says of it: "His speech . . . admirable as it was in its phrasing and criticism, was lifeless. It expressed, not the Socialist, but the Radical, point of view, and though it may have caused faced of ministers to fall, it failed to arrest public attention and support. What does it signify to us if officers are promoted from the ranks

or commissioned from the classes? It would not reconcile us to the capitalist system if every employer had risen from the working classes. Our quarrel with the Bill is not on such a trifling matter, but xvith the construction of a force specially organised for foreign invasion. The objection would remain were every officer, from lieutenant to field-mar-shal, the son of a labourer.” Air Russell Smart then proceed? to go r ov his go )d comrade* with tu© “gloves off.”