LABOUR TROUBLES IN JAPAN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 54, 18 October 1911, Page 8

LABOUR TROUBLES IN JAPAN.

They have labour troubles in Japan, just as they have them clsewueio. ” uis, saj s a .Sydney journal, is what surprised Mr. J. M. Sandy on Jus recent tour of that Empire. Too artisans have very strong guilds, which are extremely insistent not only on preference to unionists, hut on local preference. That is, a carpenter fi .llll i'.agasaki, lor instance, is not welcomed in \ okohania. All treaty for labour is done with the c”’lds. A contractor at Nagasaki desiring to erect a house, sends to the guitu a request to Do iiirinsiiecl wuu thirty carpenters. If he finds that the work is not progressing sufficiently fast ho asks for more men from the guild, which more than likely will reply: “()!i, no, you have quite sufficient.” Then, perhaps, the contractor asks the guild at Yokohama to furnish him with' ten carpenters. The request is complied with, and the men come; but they do not work. The Nagasaki workmen down tools, and there is a battle which invariably with the intruding workmen being defeated. All wages are paid, not to the artisans, but to the guild. Since tho war, and due to the taxes imposed by reason of military and nov-,1 ure. the increase in the cost of living has been as much as 50 per cent. Naturally workers demand more pay, and tlmy have obtained it. The wages are still mounting, ami »t is nothing unusual for a master to be met with a demand for still further increases of 5 or 10 cents a day.