ANOTHER AUSTRALIAN RECORD.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 August 1930, Page 8

ANOTHER AUSTRALIAN RECORD.

Australia is a country of records. Whether it is cricket, drought, rainfall, political reputation or trades unionism, the Commonwealth seems to contain a faculty for extremes. Fresh records are ever being created, but one of hich cable advice wa« received on Wednesday is rather beyond the average. It has been left for a union of unemployed in Melbourne to find that even a soup kitchen may become the representation of the “anti-social” tendencies so beloved of the soap box orator and merit the awful trade-union punishment of being declared “black.” That surely sets a new record in industrial disputes. For the cause is not one of hours of labour, or even of conditions under which the kitehen cmployeci? work. As all of them are unpaid such foundations for a dispute would have been difficult to lay. But the unionists’ grievance was that the output was lacking in quality. Herein again was the ‘‘unemployed” union breaking fresh ground, for it is usually the employer and the public who complain of the inefficiency that accompanies so much of trade union control of industry. Still the fact remains that the kitchen was condemned for the inferiority of its output. Mutton and potatoes it served out, gratis no doubt, but in wearisome monotony that revolted the soul, even if it filled the stomach, of every true unionist.. New Zealand has not been told whether representations to the management preceded the declaration of the kitchen a<s “black,” though it can be imagined that those giving time and money to help the unemployed might be inclined to be curt with their critics. However it has been organised, the “black” kitchen denotes a new record in union demands. Whether it is likely to stimulate beneficence or to reflect credit upon the trade union movement must be left to the wage-earners of Australia to decide.