TRADE COUNCILS' CONFERENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8493, 23 July 1907, Page 5

TRADE COUNCILS' CONFERENCE.

DEPUTATION WAIT ON HON. J. A. MILLAR. By Telegraph—Press Association. WELLINGTON, July 22. A deputation representing the conference of the Trades Councils of the colony waited on the Hon. J. A. Millar, to-night, to place before him a long list of resolutions adopted at the last conference which sat at Dunedin. Mr Cooper, President, said that the deputation could claim to voice the opinions of organised labour throughout the colony. They wished to distinctly state that they whole-hearted-ly supported the principle of conciliation as embodied in the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. To some extent the Act had been discredited, and j rendered inoperative, but the fault. lay entirely with the legislature. | They desired that where employers employing a majority of workmen j agreed to the recommendations of , the Conciliation Board these recommendations should have the force | of the award. Further, all employers entering business after an award had j been made should be at once made parties to it, and the Conciliation Board should have the power of amending their recommendations. As they wanted the present Act retained they opposed the proposal to establish Wages Boards. Fifty per cent, of thR Unions would not, through inability to get men to serve on the boards, be able to avail themselves cf the privileges. The resolutions passed at the j Dunedin conference were then submitted to the .Minister. The Minister, in reply, said that he hoped during this week or next week I to circulate the amending Concilation ! Act among the Labour Unions. His i one object had been to encourage I Unionism, and to enable facilities to be given to deal with all disputes in ' a prompt manner. He hoped that the j scheme he had devised would enable ! a breach to be dealt within four days of it coming to the notice of the Department. It was very easy to talk about local currency but when one got inside and saw the intricacies'of finance as he saw it, it was different. The proposal was not practicable unless the State bought all the gold in the* colony, and sold it outside. He had tried to adjust the tariff so that no industry would be sacrificed for another. The object of putting a specific I duty per pair on boots was to do away with the importation of sweated goods. According to one resolution the conference had carried it had constituted itself a political party, and then they asked the Government to | advance money for delegates to attend j the conference. If the Government ! granted it to one they would have to do it to all. The Government desired to continue the vote, but if the conference was to be apolitical organisation they would be simply forced to say "No."

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