A BUTCHERING TROUBLE.

Observer, Volume XX, Issue 1121, 23 June 1900, Page 2

A BUTCHERING TROUBLE.

Scope for the Conciliation Court.

Though the demands of trades unionists are frequently aggressive and unreasonable, it by no means follows that all their claims are of this character. There is proceeding before the Conciliation Court in Wellington at the present time a case between the journeymen butchers and their masters which seems to &if 3rd a striking illustration of our argument. The butchering trade in Wellington is in a very bad way bo far as the wages and conditions of labour are concerned, if it is possible to judge from the evidence that has been submitted to the Court up till this stage of the proceedings. One circumstance thac tends to give the case additional interest to Auckland readers is the fact that the interests of the journeymen are being represented by Mr F. R. Bust, a former resident of Auckland, who will be remembered as having taken a prominent part in the labour movement in this city at the time of the maritime dispute. Being a good speaker, and quite a lawyer in the examining and cross-examining of witnesses, Mr Bust has succeeded. in making out an excellent case so far. He has no lack of material to work upon, seeing that he has something like forty witnesses at his disposal, but the facts elicited are also very much with him. For example, it transpires that some of the men ara worked as much as seventytwo hours per week- for a wage of thirty shillings and food. One witness tells of starting to work ut one o'clock on Saturday morning, and going on till eleven o'clock the same night, while eighteen hours' work at a stretch on Saturday is the rule in many of the shops. Fancy starting work at 5 a.m. and going on till nearly midnight at a laborious trade in a country which talks of an eight hours day under legislative enactment. And the lengthy houis on Saturday njghfe are chiefly necessary to suit the selfish convenience of working paople who themselves enjoy the eight hours system and a Saturday half-holiday. What better example of man's inhumanity to man than this ? It by no means follows that the low wageß and sweating hours prevail in all shops. There are considerate employers as well as harsh ones, but the fact that such conditions of labour prevail in a trade employing so many men is one of the fen sound arguments for. compulsory arbitration. State interference between the employer and his workmen is, as a rule, very undesirable, but occasionally a set of circumstances is disclosed which goes far to justify it, and the condition of the butohering trade in Wellington seems to furnish just such a sec of circumBtanoes. Of course, it is quite possible that the employers, may put a different complexion on the face of affairs when their turn comes, but, so far, the journeymen have been making out a strong case.