TRADES AND LABOUR.

Otago Witness, Issue 1898, 19 June 1890, Page 20

TRADES AND LABOUR.

(Phh Phess Association.)

Paris, Jnne 12.

Six thousand miners at St. Etienne, a town in the Department of the Loire, have gone out on strike.

STRIKE OF STEVEDORES AND DOCK-

London, June 12. The Orient Company having discharged two firemen and replaced them with blacklegs, a strike resulted, and the stevedores and 300 labourers (not dockers) went out.

The East India Dock Company having abolished two or three dockers' representatives at their dock, 2000 men have struck work as a protest against the action. A strike iis also imminent at the Viotoria Dock, owing ito the company discharging 30 of its prominent, hands. The police in the Metropolitan district refrain from striking, as they fear such a step would lead to the introduction of legislation detrimental to the interests of trade unionists.

June 16. The dock companies have yielded and the men resume work.

June 17

The leading companies at the Albort Dock 6 have arranged to employ labour to work their ships independent of the dock companies. Sixty thousand miners at Barnsley have adopted the Eight Hours Bill.

POSTMEN AND POLICEMEN. London, June 12. Mr Cecil Raikes, Postmaster-general, has suspended and imposed a fine on 100 postmen who attended a union meeting. The decision has caused a great commotion at the Central Post Office.

June 13.

Mr J. Munro, Chief Commissioner of Police, resigned because he considered that the Police Pension Bill was not formed on liberal terms. The police are greatly dissatisfied with the measure. Mr Munro's resignation has been accepted.

Jnne 14.

Thß police urge that Mr Munro be reinstated, and they threaten to strike on the 20th inßt. unless better paid.

June 16. It is feared the dispute with the postmen will delay the delivery of the Australian mails.

MILLERS' AND MILLWORKERS' UNION.

A large and representative meeting of operative millers and millworkers was held in the Oddfellows' Hall on Saturday evening, when it was decided to form a union with the view of obtaining shorter hours of labour and otherwise promoting and safeguarding the interests of the trade. It is intended to affiliate with the Trades and Labour Council, and it was resolved to write to the president of that body and to hold an adjourned meeting to be held a fortnight hence, when the necessary steps will be taken to accomplish that object. The meeting was attended by Mr Harraway, of Burnside, who expressed his hearty sympathy with the movement and promised his support. To give all his employes an opportunity of being present Mr Harraway closed bis mill on Saturday afternoon, and the meeting marked its appreciation of his support by electing him the first honorary member of the union.

A PETITION TO PARLIAMENT.

We have received from the president of the Knights of Labour a petition which is being circulated and signed lor presentation to Parliament. The petition, after reciting the difficulties which the colony has passed the depressed state of industry ; the fact that 9000 persons, chiefly adults, left the colony last year ; and the gross abuse of the Public Worke policy, which is held responsible for the depression under which the colony has laboured for the past nine years, goes on to say that the depression has been aggravated by the fiscal policy of the Government : — " Your memorialists allege that the taxation applied in 1888 has, together with that previously existing, operated to cripple trade, td""crush enterprise, to create monopolies, and to banish capital, and to prevent the circulation and diffusion of money. Your memorialists take leave to refer to the hopes held out to the people in 1887. They allege that the people of New Zealand were then misled with tho belief that the imposition of increased Customs duties would tend to multiply colonial manufactures and industry, to the investment of capital iv colonial enterprise, to increase the demand for labour, to make employment varied and plentiful. They were told that it would tend to check the import of goods manufactured iv the colony, and to keep the money in the colony. Now, after two years of this crashing taxation it is found that there is not one of the promises made in 1887 which has not been falsified. If there is one manufacture in this colony which should have held its own and thriven under a protective duty it was the woollen and clothing industry ; if there is one industry in which the foreign importer should have been beaten out of the markets by heavy protectives duties—if heavy protective duties can have that effect —iL is the woollen industry ; aud yet we find that none of the woollen mills are really prosperous, and making all allowances for the transfer of articles from the head of • drapery ' under the old tariff to the heads of ' apparel and slops ' under the preseut tariff, there is no indication whataverof any abatement of the imports iv any of those soft goods articles which the 25 per cont. duties were intended to check the imports of in favour of the colonial manufactures. Indeed, it appears, though to what extent it is impossible to say, that a nob inconsiderable increase has taken place in these imports. Your memorialists assert that while this baneful form of fiscal policy damages the colony in one way, the property tax cripples it in another. They contend that it has aided to cause a considerable efflux of capital, and to induce the capitalist, as he has recovered

his loans from the borrower, to transfer the money to other countries, and they point to the enormous deficiency in imports as against exports as a proof of this drain of capital." The above are the essential clauses of the petition. There are several others couched in general terms to the effect that the simplification of the tariff, and the adjustment of local and colonial taxation, are the only means of exit from the depression; that a courageous and liberal policy will restore prosperity to the colony. The administration of the lands of the Crown, according to the petitioners, should be changed so as to secure that the desire for land of the wealthy landowners may no longer bar the access of bona fide settlers to the remaining good cultivable land, and t at a guarantee should be given to all bonajde settlers that they should be honestly treated, and large and wide inducements should be given to induce persons to occupy the lands of the colony.