THE WORLD OF WORK

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6270, 25 July 1907, Page 7

THE WORLD OF WORK

NOTES ON LABOUR AFFAIES AT HOME AND ABEOAD. (Conducted by “Honestas.") rSecretariss of Trades Unions and Trades . and Labour Councils are. requested to forward for publication in this co.umn ' items of interest to wage-earners generally and Trades Unionists In particular.) ANSWEES TO COEEESPONDENTS. "Irishman" (Palmerston North). You have been misinformed. Pete Curran never resigned membership of the Independent Labour Party. Some yearn r ago, owing do pressure, of work as a Trade Union organiser he resigned his seat on the National Administrative Council of that Party. ■•Socialist" (New Plymouth).—Winsoonsin has the best organised Socialist Party of any of the American States. 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 i Is the leader of the American Socialist Party. Gompers is Piesident of the American Federation of Labour, a position he has held since 1886. He is hot a Socialist, and only recently declared for , independent : labour representation, .

The election of Victor (prophetic namel) Grayson, the Socialist,, for .Colne •Valley;,; is-another evidence of the determination of the British : Worker , to choose the out-and-outer in preference to the milk-and-water (mostly water) Liberal-Labourite.' The fact that the Socialist vole has been drawn almost equally from the Liberal and Conservative candidates is a further vindication of Keir Hardie’s policy of strict independence of both orthodox parties. Colne Valley ™ one of the first constituencies selected by the I.L.P. as likely to prove a successful battling ground. Mr Tom Mann, now leader of the i Victorian Socialist Party, was the first to break ground in the constituency. This was in 1893, when, the Labour vote in a three-cornered contest amounted to 1345. and the Liberal can* didate was successiul, though palling 461 less than the defeated .Liberal has done on the present occasion. Mr Victor Grayson is. one of. the most active of I.L.P. propagandists.

Labour (says Karl Marx) ie a peculiar expression of ene:gy of the labourer’s life. And this energy he sells to another party, in order to secure for himself the means of living. For him therefore, his energy ia nothing hut a means of xnsn ring his own existence. He works to . live. He does not count the work itself ae a part of hia life, rather it is a sacrifice of hie life. It is a commodity which he has made over to another party. Neither is its product th» aim of his activity. What he nroduces for himself is not the silk that he 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 qnnntitv of means of exist-nce—a cotton shirt,: some copper coins,; and : a lodging in a cellar. ■

' The Wellington Building , Trades’: Labourers’ Union has more than doubled its membership during the past two months. Mr Lyons, who was engaged by the Mnion as paid organiser for a ue-iod of six months, has more than justified his appointment.

Mr Ben TiHett, who trill spend the month of September in a lecturing tonr throughout New Zealand, ears, in a letfe" to "Honestas." that he fonnd 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 McCullough 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 . from 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 ai Chntchurch on August sth.

The following clause is from . the industrial agreement between the Dock, Wharf, Riverside, and Genera] Workers’ Union of Great Britain and Ireland and Messrs Oammell, Laird and Company: "Any grievance a workman may have in connection with his work, the same shall be dealt with by the foreman' in , charge and the workman concerned. Should thev not be able to settle satisfactorily, the matter in qnes'ion shall be submitted to the general manager and the workmen’s repres-nta+ive. All work shell 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 del-gate to the Socialist International Congress,

which meets at Stuttgart. "Wurtenberg. 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 Germany, Prance 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 delegate®, re presenting 106 000 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 employed 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, 'W ellington takes the lead with sixtythree unions having a total combined membership of 8311. 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' ’ *o d ir --’ nsl 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 are 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 newspaper's I Remembering this one fails to understand the complete silence concerning the results of the Austrian Parliamentary elections and the Municipal elections .at Borne. At the latter, though their candidates were denounced; from all the altars of the city churches, the SocialistSi captured twenty-five of the thirty vacant i seats. In Austria, despite the fact that each candidate r» trrrned 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 triumph so tremendous left no loophole for the dissembling "news item."

But the cable has informed us of the : bankruptcy of the Liberal-Labour member, J. Havelock Wilson/, and", this news recalls to my mind: a eihiilax situation in which the member for Middles- ’ borough found himself m . the early ’nineties. He had been very os 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 of Joe’s house, and every stick of his furniture was sold by order of his creditors. The same day. however, his household gods were all freely, restored to him. They had been bought in by two friends—Tom Mann and L. M. Johnson. :

, A deputation of N.S.W. Labour mom- , bore interviewed Premier , Carruthers . i last week to protest against the importaItion of coal miners from the United Kingdom while a large number of mine 1 workers were out of employment in that State. The deputation produced English , and. Soots .newspapers containing advertisements stating; that -the, -New South v. ales 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 he promised an in-: - vestigation into them. '/

Two of the nineteen women' elected to the Parliament i of - Finland i ■ are wives of malei members' of "the ' Landtdag, aa the popular House’ is-"called; All the women nembers are workers ■ with hand or brain, or r the wives or mothers of such workers. One was formerly a domestic servant and cook. Of late years ehe has become known as editor of a Socialist journal, and a persistent advocate of better conditions for servants. The 'ages of the women deputies vary from 23 to U. The Socialist Party ie the’ strongest in the rlouse; ■ mustering seventy, against ISO of all other aoettono. The Melbourne Trades’Council recently , carried' a resolution calling ■ for the nationalisation of the starch industry, and the eecretary 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 be 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 eooh a proposal.

When Mr Haldane’s Army Bill was before the House of Commons. Mr J. E, v; 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 com-f rades to point out the weak points in the speech. "Drummer" Smart (who seepis to be resuming his old plaoa in the fighting line, which he vacated ia 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 faces of ministers to fall, it failed to arrest public attention and support. What docs it signify to us if officers are promoted from the ranks or commissioned from the classesf 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 -with the construction of a force specially organised for foreign invasion. The objection would remain were every offidbr, from lieutenant to field-mar-ehal. the son of a labourer.'’

Mr Russell Smart then proceeds to K o r o- his go>d comrade” with the "gloves, .oft."

' Among the prizes offered by the Pans Academy of Science to inventors is one of JEMOO, founded by Pierre Guzmann, which is to go to the person who finds a way of communicating with the inhabitants of another planet. Another prize —the Breant—awaits an infallible remedy against Asiatic cholera. "Forewarned, forearmed," remarked th» when winter’s bleak winds Forearmed is he and well armed, too. Who holds a safeguard ’gainst the crew Of ills that come upon the wind, ■ And that safeguard you II always nnu In medicine * that’s safe and sure. The Trusty Woods' Great Peppermint Cure.

The citr magnates of Cleveland, Ohio* have decided that Mr John D. Roc icefeller’s name is no longer good enough for the great boulevard which he gave tho city, and have changed it to East ’Boulevard. “Tt looks to me like serving notice on him that the city wants no” more of his gifts/* was a piopertjOftner’e comment.