WORLD OF WORK

NZ Truth, Issue 474, 18 July 1914, Page 2

WORLD OF WORK

I— Pithy Points for Proletarian Plugs— I I BY "HONESTAS." II The fields are glowing rich with grain, And, 10, the harvest comes amain; ' ' , Shall others reap where ye have sown, Up, Workers, up, and claim your own.

It is declared often that wages ii all departments of Labor have increas ed considerably of late years, and almost everybody would admit that thi! was so. "The Loco. Record," however .points out that m one branch of th< railway service, wages have not beei Increased Since 1S81! Under the headjng, "In a Rotten Way," the "Record* says:— s Drifting from "bad to worse" is about the only way one could give . expression to the conditions m the Locomotive Department of the New Zealand Railways. Recently a fireman was required to fill a. position on the West Coast, and sooner than go over there several resigned the Service. This attitude, which is fairly representative of the whole of the firemen, can only be construed: into a lack of ' interest m the work they were engaged upon. And the whole fault lies at the door of the management, who steadfastly refuse to give a higher wage to cleaners than existed m the year 18S1. A dearth of applicants for the cleaning shed work is glaringly apparent by the attractive advertisements appearing m the newspapers throughout the Dominion. Needless to say, when a scarcity arises, it becomes incumbent upon the management " to take those offering or else there • will be a dangerous amount of overtimes-worked by the' driver and fireman. \ That there is a. very great amount of overtime,- goes without saying, and the excessively long hours of; the driver and fireman on duty is — well, to use a fighting term — looking for trouble. . - And the Vimless Vietch, speaking ir the Haouse the other night claimed h< had been. a Labor Leader m New Zealand for the past twenty years, "Honestas" supposes with special reference to his connection with 'the: A.S.RS. H< may have been a leader, but it doesn'i seem as if his leading has benefited the cleaners referred to m the above paragraph. • " .*,. ■ ' • ■ •-, .• That the interests of the plute pusr are international and that, as far ai their own ranks are concerned, the} accept the Socialist motto, "An injurj to one Is an concern to all," no thinking man will attempt to gainsay. Bui it has come to Rockefeller, No. 11. tc proclaim position m blunt, cold terms. Not even tho bucolic Bill Massey or the Neroic Herdman is gome to be as frank — at least between now and ne^t December— whatever, they may say or do afterwards, if the foolworker is ass enough to give them a longer leaso of power. Rockefeller tho greater, when begged to make some decent sacrifice with a view to ending the desperate condition brought "about by the strike -in vhis big mines at Colorado (U.S.A.), replied that the whole i responsibility now rested with Rockefeller, junior. The appeal was then made to the moro juvenile Money Grub, the God-fearing, Sunday-school-teaching Gold Bug; and Rockefeller 11. replied: ; I will never draw back. I will spend my millions, if need bo, In preserving the rights of free labor. * The interests of the Massey and Rockefeller crowds are Identical : but Rockefeller 1b powerful "enough to say what his henchmen m New Zealand won't. ■ • • • A striking instance of the effectual solidarity of labor, m ono of Its branches, Is to bo found m tho Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, whose machinery is so excellent that it is now one united body, with branches throughout the British Empire. Recently, the New Zealand section transmitted £3000 to tho parent fund. This substantial amount was forwarded as, a special fund to be devoted to the wives nnd children of the London strikers. It has nothing to do with "Strike Funds," per se. Anent this, the Wellington brunch of the society gave £100 for the relief of the wives and children of the recent strikers, but "Honestas" is Informed that no mention of this sum was made when the ''Maoriland Worker" gavo a BUiiement atf to what had become of the large funds subscribed to the strike movement. Wus the omission uccldontal? » • • Ambrose Pratt's description of life m tho South African mines, m his new book, "Tho Real South Africa" is frankly horrible. The mines are a disgrace lo civilisation and nothing moro abominable could be found In Siberia. A Chamber of Mines Report shows that 20,9-12 workers perished m the Tninsvaal mines during the live yearn ending 1909. The author Kays:— - The facts that I have set down above arc odious to relate, yet they ought to be rotated. They Indicate that tho Rum)' gold is rather n cuthq than v blessing to South Africa. South Africa to a very largo extent lives upon it. hut how many victims die? The system Is one of thinly disguised, bloodsmeared slavery. The foundations of it are the blacks, who 101 l for a pittance and perish like locusts. A little higher up are the white workers. They «urn on an average £.1 per day. but they live only from aoven to nine years. On top are the magnates, who hold their fcu«t« and levees and dwell In Irnp«rial luxury. The money they lavish keeps the wheels of South African commerce moving wlcndlly. Ancient Nlnovah nnd HabyJon huvo been revived. .Johannesburg l« their twentieth-century prototype. It 1h n city of unbrjdlrd squander and unfathomable xqtmlor. Living iH more costly than one's wildest dream*. AH the nftcctwarien of life aro impudently dear. Miners of England and Australasia, however portr mny b« your lot, however dark your present proKp<?cw, let no man tempi you to South Africa with titles of the wages that arc paid upon the Hand*. The wage* arc high Indeed, but the price the workers nay for them la paid m wufferlnK and blood. Hotter a thousand Umea perlnh an pauper* In your own country, if such a chaneo should happen, thnn race to an curly tomb m a hot, deep African cavern.

i "Farmer, Laborer, Red Fedder" - writes: "Truth" struck tho nail on the - head m regard to the persistency of s the cookies m wanting the Government , to do this, that, and the other thing for i them and they generally get it. I was i on a large Government settlement . some few years back m the Auckland 1 province. The cockies petitioned the Crown about twice a week. They obtained the following concessions. The engineer m charge of draining operations was instructed to give every settler work who applied. This mainly; took the shape of big prices for contractors, ho tenders called. Gruss r seed was supplied for one year, free of interest. Artesian bores were put down by Government at cost price, etc., and, m the face of it, unimproved land on that settlement (Haurauki. Plains or Piako swamp) rose £12 anr acre within four years. The cockle reads less than any other class of men. . Any amount of cockies do not take m a newspaper — they have not time to . read. With reference to the late strike, the cockies where I was working took no notice of the strike till the direc r , tors of the local dairy factory cam*' along and addressed them and then tHejr " worked themselves into a great frenzy. It was rather funny. Sonic of the cockies got four inch nails and bent them on the anvil to resemble reputed hoof pricks, alleged to have been^ strewn about Wellington streets for i the purpose of laming specials' horses. I saw one farmer, who had hevqr left the- district, sell several at 2/- each as mementos of the strike. I paste, your articles on the woolshed doori but when the boss comes round ho alway3. patiently picks them off again, 1 There is a little place called Burs- * ton, m Norfolk, which has shown a/ ■ spirit of revolt worthy of ertiulatloW * elsewhere. Two head- teachers -of the * schools there were sacked because 3 they openly expressed themselvesxast supporters of the Agricultural Labor- * era* Union. The parents of thevchil- . > ' * dren promptly emptied the schools.' of the pupils and left tho buildings .vacant. Good luck to them! The' work- ■ , ers* right to fill' the schools with their j supporters, Is one of the most vulnorr able points m the British Plutocrats' r armour, and he knows it. That's why . he kioks. It's about time Labor m Now <' I Zealand insisted on the same point.' At ! > present Pl ute has all tho pull m making [ appointments to positions m. our I schools. » r • • • "Health," ' Wellington, writes: -rThe Arbitration Court has Seen lit to reduce tho hours of labor. for 1 the carpenters and some other out- ! side workers to forty-four hours per wepk. I have no fault to .llnd • ; Vlth such concessions, but what.l want to point out. is that, if forty* four hours are sufficient for men to toil m .the open, hayi fcqmqs it; "< , that the hours m our factories faro- ; -.'' still longer, and that, too, not only for men but also for women ; and girls? Surely, the hours worked by those m connned factories and closo work-rooms ought to bo less than those of men who work m the healthy opon air? Ask any medico and ho will tell you that this is so, if tho fact is not self-apparent. If an outside worker's week's work is to be limited to forty-four hours, then by comparison an inside worker's should be reduced to forty hours— say, and thirty-eight for women and girls. Speaking at the Wellington Woollen Mills Employees' soclnl, recently, Mr. Tom Wllford,. was cheered when ho said that he Intended during the pro- . sent session to move an amendment to the Factory Act so as to limit the hours of female fuctory workers to forty-Uve hours per week. In view of what "Health" has said above, Tom will hoc that there isn't anything very much advanced about his proposal, and that if he doesn't make his proposed amendment a little more drastic, somo ono of the J^abor Members will movo another, and then we'll see who nre m favor of a "Square Deal" to Labor,