Jottings.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4830, 20 December 1893, Page 1

Jottings.

The Democrats in the United States insist that iron ore and coal should be subject to an import duty. - La3t year there were 1130 persons killed on the railways of the United Kingdom, and 4485 injured. Excluding season-ticket holders the proportion of passengers killed waß only one in 6,701,049 and one in 641,272 injured. The shipwrights in the royal dockyards at Chatham are sending in petitions to the Lords of the. Admiralty, iTging them to pay the Trades Union rates of wages and to entirely abolish the system of classification. The Admiralty have stopped all overtime in the Chatham dockyard, both on ships and the workshops. No one is to be allowed to work an extra hour without the sanction of the Admiral-Superintendent. The present disorganised state of the colliery workmen of South Wales is receiving more and more attention. Mr Brace, agent for the Miners' Federation ef Great Britain, haa invited all the workmen's representatives to hold a round table conference shortly to consider the question. The strike of the minerß and the consequent slackness of trade has led to great destitution among the coal porters in London, especially among those who have to handle inland coal. Mr Harry Brill, president of the Coal Porters' Union, has stated that for two months the men had not, on an average, earned more than 6a per week. If the odd men who helped in loading during tlie antumn and winter months wera taken into account lie did not believe that the average wags would amount to more than 3s per week. As the majority of the men had wives and families to support the distress waa very great. In the District Court at New- York, Emma Goldman was recently sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment for deliver* ing speeches of an incendiary character. The unemployed in New York decided to hold demonstrations and open-air meetings in various prominent parts of the city for the purpose of ventilating their grievances. Among their most ardent supporters was the woman Goldman, who, while avowing herself a pronounced Anarchist, reproached her audiences for starving in a great city like New York, when all around them there was boundless wealth. Goldman's arrest led to the abandonment of the daily parades. The Manchester Carriage and Tramway Company, who employ some hundreds of men, recently acceded to the request of the drivers and conductors for apeiiodical day of ie3t. Under the arrangement which was then arrived at each driver and conductor was allowed one day off every week, receiving their wageß the same as if they were at work. The men, however, are now agitating for a change, being desirous rather of reducing their daily hours of labour than of securing the weekly day off. They have accordingly represented to the directirs of the company that, with an addition of only eight men to the whole staff matters could be so arranged as to reduce the working hours of the drivers aud conductors to twelve hours, and they have offered to give up their weekly holiday if the company will agree to make this alteration. The London Central Unemployed Organization Committee has issued a long manifesto to the people of the United Kingdom, setting forth that there are nearly two millions of persons at present unable to obtain work, and demanding the immediate introduction into Parliament of Bills prohibiting the immigration of indigent foreigners, preventing sweating, amending the Poor Law so as to facilitate the distribution of temporary outdoor re-, lief, providing grants for the execution of various public works which are enumerated and some other objects. At a meeting of the unemployed on Tower Hill, recently, Mr John Jewers, the organiser of the unemployed agitation, who presided, expressed himself as opposed to the principles of Anarchism, which had been advocated by one of the speakers. He and his comrades were now waiting for Parliament to reassemble, because the question ut the unemployed would then be brought before the House of Commons by both Liberals and Conservatives. Mr Saunders, the Radical M.P. for Walworth (brother to Mr A. Saunders, M.H.fv. for Selwyn) lectured recently upon politics from a working man's point of view, uaying that it had bscome essential that people should pay more attention to politics than they had hitherto done. Tne classes who had up to the present constituted tha ruling powers could only be baafcen by being outvoted, and the voting power of the working man must be the means by whioh he will be able to obtain his rights. Tb.B absence of frequent and cheap workinen'd trains entailed a great waste of woriei'i' time. To obviate that the County Council had a scheme in view by which workmen would be enabled to travel by underground railway at the rate of one penny per twenty miles. Cheviot.— The Otago Daily Times remarks :— " A Taieri gentleman who vis'.ted the Cheviot estate declares it to be the fina&t grazing; country he has seer."