THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19946, 13 November 1926, Page 20

THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

NEWS AND NOTES. By J. T. Paul. LABOUR COUNCIL AND LABOUR GOVERNMENT. For some time the relationships between the Brisbane Trades and Labour Council and the Labour Government of Queensland have been unsatisfactory. When the last mail left there was much feeling- over the passage of the following resolution: — ‘ That the secretary o£ the Trades and ■ Labour Council bo instructed to communicate immediately with all metropolitan organisations requesting their members to march from the Trades Hall in mass formation to the Domain for the purpose of protesting against the inadequate basic wage. Such protest to be held on Saturday, November 6, all work in the metropolitan area to cease from 8 a.m. to 12 noon, and that all Trades Councils throughout the State be notified of this decision, and bo requested to adopt similar nr ethods.” THE WORKERS’ CONDITION. •‘The world still lacks complete equality of opportunity, is, indeed, very far from it. Nevertheless, to assert workers as a whole are worse off now, or have les- chance to better themselves, than thev were in the past, or than they had in the past, is to argue against plain facts,” i- the conclusion of Messrs W. R. Hayward and G. W. Johnson jii a book on the evolution of labour “As far back as written history goes, men were talking about the good old days, the Golden Age that is gone tor ever. Probably before they learned to write, they were talking the same way. But with the records that historian., have olaced before us, we can now pick out any point in the long rise of man from savagery, and see that, contrary to the belief of men of that time, better days were ahead than any that were in the’ past. With all the imperfections that exist, the worker who would go back to some earlier period in the world’s history simply is not acquainted with that history. . . . The average workman to-day occupies a position in manv/ respects superior to that of any workman in the history of the world: but what he gets' out of life depends finally much less upon the high civilisation of his country than upon himself. He can live in the midst of that civilisation, and still be a little better than a slave. If he seizes his opportunities and becomes a freeman, it is because the spirit of a freeman is in him.” OIL FUEL AND COAL STRIKES. The extraordinary growth of the use of oil in ships, either for steam raising or in internal combustion engines, revealed by Lloyd’s Register annual report, can bo traced directly to the coal troubles of the post-war period. Owners were dissatisfied with coal supplies during the controllership. The export trade reached such’ a pass that the attention of the President of the Board of Trade was called, in a question in Parliament in May, 1920, to bunkers costing sometimes as much as £9 a ton, which makes fbc price the United States is asking to-day appear small. This state of affairs and the unsettlement of the industry, resulting in the coal strike of 1921, led owners, when reconditioning their ships, to go boldly for oil fuel and to adopt oil wherever possible for their vessels. Thus ships fitted for burning oil fuel increased from 5,336,678 tons in 1919 to 14,464,162 tons in 1922, the latter being nearly 12 times the pre-war figures. With lower prices for coal, the rate of conversion has been slower, but the" register shows that at July, 1926, there were 18,243,539 tons of shipping equipped for burning oil fuel. In the seven years, the list of motor ships has increased from 752,600 tons to 3,493,284 tons. One effect of the adoption of oil firing, in addition to the reduction of the demand for coal, has been the creation of a new industry, in which millions of pounds have been distributed among workers engaged on conversions and new installations. Its magnitude is illustrated by the fact that the reconditioning of the Olympic took nine months, and that of the Aquitania seven months. UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE. Reviewing the annual report on unemployment insurance in Britain, Mr J. A. Spender, in the Wetsmirister Gazette, says:— "We arc constantly hearing of cases in which an ingenious family of shirkers ekes out the ‘dole’ with poor-relief, and between its different members accumulates a sufficient sum to live on in ‘idleness and luxury’; but the crude fact remains that for the vast majority of individuals life on the ’dole’ means life on 18s 6d a week, and the wide- disproportion between the number of average weekly payments and the number of ‘registrations’ shows that the vast majority of them get off the ‘dole’ as quickly as they can, when work offers, and only go back to it when there is a genuine failure of work. The ‘dole/ in fact, is acting as it was intended to act —as a genuine and helpful insurance, and its supposed demoralising effects are largely a figment. To the twelve and threequarter millions of people registered, it is a stand-by in trouble, which gives them an assurance that the worst will not happen to them, but it is certainly not a lure to tempt them from work. It must be added that what is called the ‘dole’ is almost wholly contributed, by industry itself, and from the contributions of workmen as well as of employers.”

“The amount of benefit paid out lastjfyear was about £46,000,000, and the amount to which the fund is in debt to the State at the end of a long period of lean years is Jess than £8,000,000," Mr Spender adds. “Had this form of insurance been started in normal times, instead of at the beginning of a long and steep depression, it would certainly have been solvent from the beginning and there is every ground to hope that as normal times return, it will wipe off its debt and accumulate a surplus. . In any case, we may bo thankful that it was started just in these times, for it has saved an enormous amount of suffering, and is carrying us through a hard time at comparatively little cost to the taxpayer. The main safeguard is the strong and healthy opinion of the workers themselves. _ In spite of all the croakers, we are convinced that this is now, as always, on the side of work, and that it will keen in check any tendency to make out-of-work allowances a substitute for work and wages.” INTERNATIONAL REGULATION OF .SICKNESS INSURANCE. From its inception the International Labour Organisation has held the standardisation of regulations on social insurance to bo one of its fundamental duties. The authors of Part 13 of the Treaty ol Versailles referred especially, in the Preamble, to the necessity of “the protection of the worker against sickness, disease and injury arising out of his employment.” In 1525 the seventh session of the International Labour Conference adopted various draft conventions and recommendations dealing with insurance against industrial accidents and occupational diseases and the question of sickness insurance has been placed on the agenda of the tenth session of the conference, to bo held in 1927. The International Labour Office has addressed a questionnaire to the States members of the organisation asking their opinion as to what aspects of the problem of sickness insurance they consider susceptible of forming the object of an international con- | vention.

In a statement concerning the motives of this questionnaire it is pointed out sickness constitutes a grave risk for the worker and his family involving as it ’does a diminished capacity for work, or even temporary disablement, and entailing more or less heavy expenses. Individual thirst in the form of savings and observation of the rules of health are insufficient to ob viato sickness or, in every case, to cope with the reduction of rosouces and the fresh burdens it involves. Provident action, to bo effective, must be taken collectively. The realisation of this necessity has led in a number of countries to the creation of institutions or associations, free or established by law, having a threefold duty—namely, the organisation of the necessary treatment for restoring the health of the sick, the granting of benefits to take the place of at least part of the earnings lost, and the prevention of disease. During the last 40 years, 22 States have established by law the principle of the compulsorv sickness insurance of wage- earners. Certain others give their material and moral eup port to collective insurance against sick ness. To-day. in the different European States, more than 50.000,000 workers are compulsorily insured. Reference m--made, in particular, to Germany 'ilh 19.000.000, and Great Britain with 15.001000 The number of persons voluntarily insured against sickness ay also bo counted in millions, France heading the list with 3,300,000 members of mutual aid societies. Having thus indicated the neeessitv and importance of sickness insurance, the International Labour Office passes in review those questions which it considers should

form the subject of discussion in the conference itself; of which the following are tlie most important:— Should international action be based on the principle of compulsory insurance? To what categories of workers should insurance apply? What form should benefits take nature, duration, and amount of such compensation ? How should the cost of benefits be shared between the State, the insured person, and the employer? To what organisations should the management of sickness insurance funds be entrusted : Local funds or trade funds? Self-governing mutual insurance funds or State funds? The above questions serve to indicate the importance of this subject which has been placed on the agenda of the Tenth International Labour Conference. THE RUSSIAN CRISIS. Probably (says an exchange) Stalin’s leadership will result in an improvement of the relations between Russia and the outer world. It was, in fact, the urgent need of such improvement that inspired Stalin to his task of deposing the late leaders; and how clearly he understood the situation and its remedy will be gathered from the report of his speech published by the New Leader (New York) some weeks ago; — “In addition to our almost insurmountable difficulties in directing the affairs of Soviet Russia, our efforts are constantly thwarted by opposition theorists; theorists who take the time of our conferences with destructive criticism, but no remedy; theorists who have great programmes on paper, but illusory; critics who are constantly pointing out past mistakes, but never giving us credit for the work accomplished. “ These persons not only tend to divide the party unity, but take their criticism to the outside world. The next morning the capitalist press rings with the ‘ news ’ that there is dissension in the ranks. “ These people are annoying. They retard our work, but they are not as menacing as the leader of that infinitesimal element, our party councils (pointing his finger at Zinovieff), whose ceaseless utterances are broadcast as representing Soviet Russia’s frame of mind. “That person (again pointing at Zinovieff), through his unguarded idiotic utterances, has brought about a situation making it impossible for our Foreign Bureau to come to any measure of agreement or understanding with the outside world, without whose credit and manufactured goods Russia cannot exist much longer. “ Capitalising his early association vyith our beloved leader (Lenin), he has kept the world public opinion in con stant and perpetual fear of Russia. He alone is responsible for the failure of a treaty with England. His idiotic acts and talks have alienated even the sympathies of those in America against what they have termed ‘ world revolution.’ “Enough of that lak! Enough that idiotic slogan! Enough of that senseless letter writing to every idiot in foreign countries who pictures himself as a man who can lead millions to a rebellion against Capitalism! “That person (still pointing his finger at Zinovieff) has alienated from us the sympathy of every Socialist throughout the world. “He has made our regime an anathema to English Socialism.

“He has made us the laughing-stock of the world. And what for? 1 “We knew Russia,'and because we knew the Russian mind, our revolution was successful. “But did we mind of the American proletarian? Did we know the mind of the English working man? < “We did not. r “But thanks to that person (pointing at Zinoviefi), we have learned considerable of the attitude of the working class in every industrial country. And that attitude is against us. “The time has come when ive will have to take a stand fiotn a cam si the destruo live activities of those represented by that person, as well as against the reformists, who will enter into unholy temporary matrimony with Capitalism, represented by that person (this time pointing his finger at Trotsky). “Where lie lacks wisdom and judgment he is profusely endowed with talk, talk, and more talk, until I, the simple cobbler’s son, grow dizzy, and wonder if I am listening to a college professor or a scientific man whose technical terms X cannot understand. “Then what will we do? Recall the Czarism? No. ’ . “The Union of the Republics of Soviet Russia will continue its course triumphantly, steering a straight path, neither listening to the idotic shouts of, the world revolutionist, nor to the. words of the glcomy prophets."