THE ROSSER VINDICATION.

Observer, Volume XXVI, Issue 44, 21 July 1906, Page 2

THE ROSSER VINDICATION.

Tailoresses and Their Rights,

THE recent experiences of Mr Arthur Rosser in the Auckland Trades and Labour. Council go to show that the lot of a labour advocate, like that of the policeman immortalised by Gilbert and Sullivan, is not a happy one. Mr Rosser is the Secretary of the Trades and Labour Council. Also, he is a pleader before the Arbitration Court in the cause of litigant trades unions willing to avail themselves of his services. It may be that his talents as an amateur lawyer are gratuitously placed at the disposal of the trades unions for the good of the cause, but this is not probable, and the greater probability is that Mr Rosser finds the play of a glib tongue and the exercise of his controversial faculty an easier method of earning a living than the nailing of planks and the sawing of boards, this being the useful business to which he was trained in his earlier years.

Some few weeks ago, the operative tailors of Auckland brought before th« Arbitration Court certain claims promoted by motives of self-interest, and the effect of one of these would have been to deprive the tailoresses of some portion of their employment and give it to the tailors. Male labour is neither chivalrous nor disinterestedly - generous when it . finds itself in competition with female labour. It goes without saying that the tailoresses would have found themselves at a disadvantage in placing their case before the Arbitration Court if they had been compelled to rely upon themselves. Though the argumentative qualifications of the sex areuudeniable, it is difficult to fiud women courageous enough to raise their voices in argument in open court, however voluble and effective they may be when the doors are closed. In this emergency, Providence raised up an advocate for the tailoresses in the person of Mr Rosser. Whether he was moved to become their advocate by the appealing witchery of bright eyes or the prospect of a fat fee is beside the question. But it is important to remember that even a labour amateur lawyer cannot live by the witchery of bright eyes alone, witch they never so fascinatingly.

♦ f! Jft This situation brought home to Mr Arthur Kosser the truth of an axiom as old as the hills that no man can serve two masters. In other words, while serving the tailoresses as an advocate in the -Arbitration Court, he was bringing himself into conflict with the tailors on the Trades and Labour Council, of which body he has for some time been the secretary. Needlees to say, there was a row in the Trades and Labour Council. It was idle for Mr Kosser to say that his presence in the Arbitration Court was in the interests of labour. To the minds of certain of the male trades unionists, there is only one legitimate kind of labour outside domestic service and type- writing, and that is the male kind. It is entitled to all the rights, all the wages, and also to all the advantages conferred by the labour laws. Therefore, a vote of censure was moved on Mr Kosser for his effrontery iv daring to champion the ct»use of women workers against the hereditary aud pre-emptive rights of the male workers, and the voting being ten on each side, the censure motion would have been carried if the chairman had not, reasonably enough given his casting vote to the contrary. This was the first stage of the battle.

Then Mr Rosser bestirred himself to effect his own vindication and rehabilitation in the eyes of the trades unionists generally. By dint of much button-holing and circularizing, he contrived to overcome sex prejudice and justify his own action to such an extent that there was a record attendance at the succeeding meeting of the Trades and Labour Council,, and the majority of those present were resolved to see him through. Probably, the most determined were six or eight of the tailoresses wh,ose cause he had upheld in the Court. Under these disadvantageous circumstances, the tailors

were thwarted in their desire to avenge themselves and theirdisappointment on Mr Kosser. Taking bis cue from tbe narrow majority on the question of censure at the previous meeting, and the presence of his sympathisers in full force, be resigned bis Eosition as Secretary of the Trades and labour Council, and was re-elected without opposition on the spot. It was a great victory, but whether for Mr Rosser as a free and unfettered labour advocate, or for the cause of female labour, has not been explained. Possibly it was something of both.

The episode demonstrates in a striking degree the selfishness of that section of the male workers who jealously dispute the right of women to honestly earn their living as they choose. So long as the law provides tnat the women are not sweated, "%,iid do not undercut the men in their rates of pay, so long should the women be entitled to etjual right and equal opportunity. The most unreasonable of all labour contentions is to dispute the right of any human being to honestly earn his or her living. So far as the Arbitration Court was concerned, it was unfair to attempt to penalize any endeavour of the tailoresses to place their case fairly before the Court. The tailors were well represented by amateur lawyers of their own choosing, and if their cause was as just as they claim it was, why should they attempt to silence tjfae advocate of a section of female workers who were at a disadvantage by reason of their disinclination or inability to stand up in Court and maintain their own rights?