TRADES AND LABOUR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2355, 13 April 1899, Page 17

TRADES AND LABOUR.

LONDON, April 4.' A meeting at Birmingham, representing 400,000 of the building trade, authorised a conference with employers on the 10th inst. A settlement of disputes is now considered probable. April 7. The conference between representatives of the Builders' Association and the National Association of Operative Plasterers, wiiu the object of arriving < at^ a settlement of the lock-out, proved abortive, the plasterers refusing the demand that they should not compel free men to join the union. April 10. Mr G. Barnes, secretary -of the Engi- ~ neers' Society, attributes the locomotive contracts going to America to the fact that American shops are producing'- one or two types on a vast scale. The engineers have voted 10d per member weekly to assist the plasterers on strike. ST. PETERSBURG, April 6. The spread of social democracy is creating serious labour troubles in Russia. The troops arrested hundreds of strikers. MELBOURNE, April 5. - The representatives of the shipowners and lumpers have settled the strike, and the men have resumed work, their demand for increased rates having being partlyconceded. CHRISTCHURCH, April 6. At yesterday's sitting of the Conference of delegates from Trades and Labour Councils a resolution was carried that the Government should be again urged to establish Government tailoring workshops in Wellington ; also a similar resolution in regard to a boot factory. It was lesolved "That the reform of the Legislative Council be made a plank in the labour platform."