THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20964, 1 March 1930, Page 22

THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

NEWS AND NOTES. By J. T. Paul. HOLIDAYS OP APPRENTICES IN GERMANY. The Federal Committee of the German Y'oung Workers’ Associations recently carried out an inquiry into the annual holidays of apprentices and young workers, the results of which arc given below: Number of days’ Number of appreuhoiiday a year. tices and young workers. No holidays 20,737 1-3 days 17,873 4-5 days 0.078 0-S days 44,034 9-10 days 4,714 11-14 days 8,314 More than 14 days 4,887

The inquiry shows that in the great urban centres out of 80,800 adolescent workers about 10,500, or 10 per cent., have no holidays. On the other hand, in towns of less than 5000 inhabitants, 54 per cent, of the young workers have regular holidays. In large industrial undertakings, only 11 per cent, of the adolescent workers have no holidays, while in the smaller undertakings 33,4 per cent, arc in that position. It will be seen from the table that on an average the holidays most frequently granted are from six to eight days a year.

AUSTRALIAN PRODUCTIVE COSTS

Speaking in the federal Arbitration Court at Melbourne, Judge Beeby said that, in view of the fall in the price of wool and other commodities, a general reconstruction iu Australia seemed inevitable. Everything pointed to the fact that the depression facing Australia was not a temporary one. All other countries in the world since 1923, after the collapse of the post-war boom, bad had to face a readjustment.

In England,” his Honor went on, “ the costs of production have been greatly reduced. In America a reduction has taken place, and there has been reorganisation in Australia. We have not done anything much because our two great sources of income—our primary products—have yielded such revenue as to enable us to retain high prices. “Is it not now the position that Australia has reached the stage that it has to face reorganisation? Our wool, wheat, and general export cheques will be probably £30,000,000 a year less. That sort of thing reacts on everyone. We cannot now borrow money as we could previously. There is a general tendency for everything to slide down at present-except the cost of living. “Ho matter what courts or Parliaments may do, will not Australia be forced to readjustments? Will not the whole of Australian profits, prices, values, and probably wages have to come down to a lower plane? Is that not what Australia is up against to-day? That consideration has given me very .great concern. If I thought that the present depression was merely one of those cycles which come and go, it would be different, but I think that everything points to the fact that we have to face a period of restriction in Australia. It seems to me that the position is m mg to be worse presently than it is ~ow. Australian Governments cannot borrow money on suitable terms, and the suspension of public works will affect your trade more than any other, though prospects /are that without paying ruinous interest for borrowed money we will not be able to get money. Consequently, we will have to do without borrowed money for a year or two. “The position is rather desperate. I am not a pessimist, but to me the present economic position appears alarming.” In a further statement in the Federal Arbitration Court a few days later Judge Beeby said that he did not support the popular theory that the only remedy for the continuing depression was the lowering of wages. ‘ I did not, and do not, support the popular theory that the only remedy for a continuing depression is the lowering of wages said Judge Beeby. “Without combined effort to lower rents and the prices of necessary commodities, the reauction of wages will be justifiably resisted. The great problem is how to reduee costs of production without reducing effective wages. If workmen respond to tne proposed scheme of reorganisation by doing their part in reducing costs of-pro-duction, by so doing they can, after a short period of transition, maintain their present earnings.”

LABOUR DIFFERENCES. In the latest issue of the Australian Worker the editor reviews the position in the following terms: — " It. is interesting to watch an inevitable line of cleavage making itself manifest in the Labour movement of Australia. “ Something of the kind was bound to occur. Incompatible elements exist within the Australian Labour Party, and it •has long been obvious that sooner or later they would sort themselves out. They are doing it now, ” Those who are in control of the party machine in New South Wales have fashioned themselves upon theories and doctrines with ’ which the majority of men and women supporting the Australian Labour Party are not in sympathy—with which, indeed, they are totally at variance. This fact accounts for the official pressure brought to bear upon the Federnl Labour Government in a determined drive it into wild and unconstitutional courses in connection with the coal trouble. “Fhe dominant element referred to cares nothing tor the constitution. To them it is something to be smashed and swept side with impatient contempt when it Beta iu the way of their desires. On the other hand, the most trusted leaders ot the Australian Labour Party are just as firmly resolved that the Labour movement shall remain true to 1 constitutional principles and methods Recent developments in New South' Wales may thus be readily traced to a clash of irreconcilable psychologies. The Prime Minister will not do what the State Executive has virtually commanded him to do. Mr Sculhn has emphatically refused to employ armed force to seize eerRothbury 8 the State police at

No such action could be taken without grossly violating the constitution and precipitating a state of civil war, and Mr Sculhn, as Labours chosen chief, knows his creed top well to be forced into measures so glaringly opposed to the spirit ot the movement in this enfranchised Commonwealth. His attitude is an immirT'fU 1 6 °V e ' If the malcontents like to hurl themselves against it—well and good reS ", t in the shattering of tneu own strength. When Mr Theodore declared that the Govc rnnle „ t ‘ wi ,l not suhmi t parliamentary dictation, nor allow its authority to be usurped by anybody/ he ample justification for this defiant ■’ Day after day, while the Metropolitan Labour Lonterence was sitting in Sydney y 7i t , nCI f befo !' 0 ~ ratterapts to Set the-Federal Ministers to ignore the Constitution and launch a military expedition against the ni«i,«?T n H° f Ne ' V SoUth Wales had beeu pushed to the point of intimidation • i necessary to declare the in unambiguous terms Mi ihcodore penormed this duty His additional statement, that ‘the Federal Government must act on its own jud /- meet, and upon its own responsibility controi , °, f Parliament in trol nf S thp n i ta i rICC ’ aIK tlle nltimatc contiol of the Labour movement as a whole/ "*H hate the endorsement of every member of the rank and file who is able to reason out intelligently the matters at =nTif C ‘- T ', ierc . is no need to fear a serious spit™ the Australian Labour Party. XiiG (lincicncos -which hfivo orison have opened the eyes of the vast body of Labourites to influences which in the past have operated mostly in the dark, and henceforth they will know who are the disrupting factors in New South Wales ami how to deal with them iu a way to ensure essential unity in our great movement.”