LINES ABOUT LABOR.

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 101, 9 April 1907, Page 3

LINES ABOUT LABOR.

The Civic Federation of New York, who seek ifi improve the social conditions throughout the United States, will establish tranches m Washington as well as m several southern cities. The work of these branches will be largely devoted to the settlement of disputes between capital and labor. Mass meetings will be held with a view to bringing employers and employees into closer relations. The Federation recently established a branch at Chicago under auspicious conditions, and they 'have now arranged for the English lecturer, Mr W. H. Mullock, to meet President Roosevelt before the former begins his series of lectures on social conditions, which are to be given m ten different cities under the auspices of the Federation. Mr Roosevelt is desirous of lending all possible support to this important movement. Mr Goinpers, the president of the American Federation of Labor, who is a member of the Civic Federation, is also giving his cordial co-operation. Before the Departmental Committee who are inquiring into the effect of arteight-hour day upon miners m the United Kingdom, evidence was given by Mr Ratcliffe Ellis, secretary to the British Mining Association. He calculated the lose m the nuniber of hours of hewers under a __eight-hour day at 11.68 per cent, over the whole kingdom. In the Midlands district it would reduce the output by 3,974,788 tons per annum, and if the same principle were applied to the whole Kingdom it would be a loss of 13.51 per cent., or a loss m production of 31,900,968 tons. The reduction of output would be m arithmetical ratio with the reduction m houns. If a man's health was suffering on account of long hours it would be adviiitageous to reduce his hours m. order to enable him to work the better. But that reduction of hours could not go on indefinitely. The Chairman : There have been very striking reductions m hours m various mines and districts. Have these reductions been followed by redaction m the output? — Mr Ellis : In some cases they have. An eight-hour day would mean an increase of the foremen's shifts. There would be a hurrj'scurry m work, and consequent danger to the men. Many of the older men would have to lose their employment. — Mr Arthur Sopwith, Cannock Chase, a past president of the Institute of Mining Engineers, and general manager of the C-nnock Chase Collieries, stated that there was great difficulty m getting men m the summer to work any more than short time. It would therefore be difficult to get men to work the double shifts.

That many m the Old Country view with fear and trembling Mr Gladstone's amended Workers' Compensation Act is shown m various ways. A legal gentleman -writes to ' The Times ' as follows : — "Probably most people are quite unaware of the veiy far-reaching terms of the Act. le-it, for instance, realised that the liability of employers has been extended so as to apply not merely to domestic servants, but to private secretaries, and to managing, shorthand, and copying clerks of both sexes earning less than £250 a year? There is also another hidden responsibility. If I, a solicitor, for instance, employ a licensed messenger to carry my papers from the Law Courts to my offioe, I shall be liable under this Act to make compensation if m the course of his journey my messenger has /the misfortune to become involved with a motor omnibus. If I merely engage him to carry my fishing rods to the station, I should get off with the loss of the fishing i rods only." All these terrible possibilities . and liabilities are m foroe . m New Zealand, and the colony, ! having adjusted the back to the burden, goes' smilingly on her "way. It is diffioult for the born colonial to realise the sharpness of dismay with which numbers m Great Britain regard what to us tis a mere commonplace of legislation. Mrs Humphry Ward and two other hon. treasurers of the After-Care Committee for Blind, Deaf, and Cripple Children publish a letter appealing to the generosity of the \ public for an object closely akin to that of the Lord IMayor, and (says the letter) equally essential — namely, the placing out of blind, deaf, and cripple children, as they leave the special schools under the London County Council, m suitable trades and wage-earning occupations. Mrs Ward says : — Admirable as the Lord Mayor's institution will be, it will only affect a limited number of cripple children ; it will not deal with the blind and the deaf ; nor do avo know, as yet, whether those admitted will be drawn exclusively from the metropolitan area. When we consider that m the twenty -two special schools of London for cripples alone there aTe 1,800 children, that there are 2,280 children m the special schools for the blind, and 623 m the special schools for the deaf, and, moreover, that the number of these schools is slowly increasing, ifc will be seen that there is a crying need for an agency for aftercare, training, and apprenticeship work, which shall step m ancf help these handicapped children, on leaving school, to start fair m the race of life. During the last twelve months we have placed out twentyseven cripple and delicate children ..in tjrades as various as dressmaking, tailoring, bootmaking, basketwork, embroidery belt making, confectionery, lamp-shade making, and tie making; and we have an increasing number of children on our hands. Here are brief abstracts of some of the cases : Two delicate boys, cases of arrested hip disease, have, after a long and patient search on the part of our workers for really suitable openings, been indentured to watchmakers m different parts of London ; one is placed with a, first-class basketmaker, another is doing exceedingly well at a West End bootmaker's, and one of our latest cases, a small hunch-backed girl, who had not done well m the openings found for her by her family, where the merciless hours would inevitably have worn heT out before long, is now happily at ■work at a lady typewriter's office, with short hours, .and a prospect of a 10s weekly wage after six months, and regular rises afterwards.

The operators of the Bell Telephone Company at Toronto struck work on January 31, objecting to the increase of the hours of labor. The girls insist that five

hours' work daily is as much as they cap. stand. The company brought m operators from outside points to fill the vacancies." A great crowd gathered m front of the principal exchange, and police' reserves were called out to protect persons entering the building. The President of the Montreal feoard of Trade, m his annual review, says that business m 1906 surpassed all foraier records, and the condition of Canada at present is one of general prosperity. The farmers fared well, mines of all kinds produced more, and the output of the products of forest and seas exceeded that of any former year. Canadian Tailway earnings,' the Teport proceeds, continue large, and manufacturing concerns m many cases are declining to take further orders. The immigration for the year was the heaviest on record, and failures weTe few and quite unimportant. At a meeting of Liberal women at Ipswich recently Miss Constance Smith, m the course of au address on 'Sweating,' said her experience was that taking m work often made for the destruction of the home, and that it was better that women who must work should work regular hours yat a factory under proper conditions and protection. The prospects, she said, of the proposed Anti-Sweating Bill were bright, seeing that the Prime Minister was so interesting himself m the matter that he had sent a commissioner to New South Wales and Victoria to inquire into the minimum wage system m vogue there. She advised those present to interest themselves m the question by joining the Ant i -Sweating League. The Scottish Trades Union Congress Parliamentary Committee recently issued a circular letter to all Labor members of Parliament, drawing attention to the action of the House of Lords m excluding Scotland from the provisions of the Meals Act for School Children. They demand, as representing the working-class organisations of Scotland, -'that the provisions of the Act be extended to Scotland without delay, and urge the Labor members to bring pressure upon the Government to introduce a Bill next session. A Bill has been introduced by our recent visitor, Mr Ramsay Macdonald. The circular is an answer to the arguments of Lord Balfour, on whose advice the Lords struck Scotland out of last year's Bill. I

Mr Keir Hardie, M.P., speaking at Aberaman, and referring to the increase of unemployment, denied the accuracy of Mr Bums's (President of the Local Government Board) statement that men were often withou:- work, not through deficiency of employment, but because they were unskilled. Every skilled toade to-day, he 6aid, had its full complement of workmen, and also a large number of unemployed. The Board of Trade returns published from month to month showed that there were 4.9 per cent, of the skilled artisans of the country at present unemployed. One reason was the improvement m, machinery. They were all aware that for a long time past the boot and shoe trade had been m a very depressed state. But m going through the Board of Trade's return last summer he was surprised to find that our exports of boots and shoes were increasing. He sent a person to Leicester to make inquiries, and he found out tliat new machinery had been introduced which had the result of reducing immensely the number cf l.^nds required. With one machine i. girl was able to do 36 much m a day as eight men formerly did. That was a 'question which tin Labor party was bound to tackle seriously, for the unemployed were the main drag on the various trade unions. The evil was that the machines were owned by the capitalists, and were used to reduce the number of men employed, and not to reduce the hours of labor. Tlie reinedv was Socialism, so that the people who produced the article might also own the machinery. An exceptional claim was recently heard m the City of London Court, m which a printer's boy named Orford had recovered judgment against Page and Pratt, Limited, printers, Ludgate Circus, for £120 damages for the loss of one of his fingers. The case had been defended by the Accident Insurance Company, with whom the defendants were insured, and who had paid £20 into court. Now that the plaintiff could not get his £120 from Page and Pratt, Limited, on account of a receiver and manager being m possession, application was made that the Accident Insurance Company should be ordered to pay. Mr W. Shakespeare, their counsel, contended that the policy of insurance entitled them to go to arbitration. Mr Harold Moms, counsel for Orford, said the boy could not afford that luxury. Judge Lumley Smith, K.C., said it would probably end m the lad never getting his damages, and the insurance company avoiding payment to anyone, becatise there would be no arbitration. He Tefused the application, but he would not give the insurance company any costs. In another case a working man named Datlin sued the Federal Insurance Corporation, Limited, Fenchurch Buildings, for £6 14s 3d under a policy of assurance. Mr Harold Morris, counsel for plaintiff, said that he paid the defendant company 2s 6d per month to insure him against sickness and accident. He was ill m September, and when he claimed they sent him £1 1& 8d only, m a cheque, by which he would have had to give a receipt m full discharge. That he refused, and now, at the last moment, the defendants had paid th-a sum claimed into court. As the case was of much importance to some thousands of working men, costs on the higher scale were applied for and granted.