Labour Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 43, 12 August 1892, Page 2

Labour Notes.

Among the people indirectly affected by the Broken Hill strike are a number of railway men . As the running of certain trains has been discontinued there is no work for the men employed on them, and, as a consequence, they have been given their annual leave of absence at what is to some of them an inconvenient time. The worst of it is, however, that leave of absence may possibly be followed by suspension, which involves a stoppage of pay.

Thus (says the Barrier Miner) Mr W. Hooper, himself formerly a big business man, to the Adelaide Register :—": — " I see by the Christian, World newspaper just to hand that the great firm of J. and B. Morley, of London, have just distributed to their 700 hands bonuses beginning at £5 up to £50. Had the directors of the Broken Hill Proprietary mine given the men a share of its enormous profits, happiness and prosperity instead of a strike would have been the order of the day. It is not too late now to be liberal."

Mr J. H, Stuicke, a delegate of the strikers to Melbourne, has explained to an interviewer in Adelaide that the men struck not bo

much against the contract system as in support of the agreement. If the agreement is not maintained, he says, every one in Broken Hill must suffer. When it was made all the people thought that there was a security against future strikes, and invested money in properties. The number of men on strike Mr Sturcke calculates at 6000, and the cost of their keep will be 7s a week per man.

In refutation of one of the mining managers— a certain " Oap'n Bill Adams," from Arizona, who informed the Adelaide Begister that the contention of the mine-owners and managers was to have the ■toping done for 10s, instead of 20s, a ton, the Barrier Miner makes the following calculation :—": — " Let the Miner pull up ' Oaptain ' Adams ' right thar,' as he would remark, and show that he has been grossly misinformed. See here : 1190 miners and timbermen were engaged in the big mine last half-year. Take off 190 for timbermen and miners sinking, driving, cross-catting, rising, etc. — it ought to be 300, though, to be more nearly correct. However, 190 from 1190 leaves 1000. Ore raised and treated for half -year, 180,798 tons. That is, within a hundredweight or two of 181 tons a man. Working full time— and a man can't work more, though most work less— the miner earns £3 a week. Three multiplied by 26 — 26 weeks in a half-year, ' Oap'n '—equal to 78. For £78, then, a man breaks 181 tons. That is, he breaks one ton for 8s 7£d. Of course if the mineowners and managers think it only ought to be broken for 10s, that can be managed ; all that the men will have to do is to ease off a little. The Miner repeats it : not one of them can open his month without pntting his foot into it."

At a meeting held on Tuesday, Jaly 19, it was resolved to establish particular stores where the men on strike should obtain goods in exchange for coupons — to be given them instead of money by the defence committee. This step, it was explained, would result in a very considerable and important saving. It was also argued that the step wonld produce a good effect by showing the determination of the men to bold out.

The profits on the Broken Hill mines for the past half-year (says the Brisbane Worker') were £633,700 ; wages and managers and officials' fat salaries, £132,000. This was in drought times and when things were going slow. Last year the value of total output was £3,960,676, or just under four millions sterling, and the wages just under half a million, leaving a cool three and a half -Billions for the fleecers who now say they can't rnn the mines to pay on present union rates. How's that for capitalistic philanthropy and trade union tyranny ?

We learn from the cablegrams that at the assembling of Parliament the dockers escorted Mr Keir Hardy, labour member, to the House of Commons in procession, singing the " Marseillaise." Great enthusiasm was shown by those taking part in the proceedings.

The strikers at Pittsburg have evidently the sympathy of workingmen in other parts of the States. We are told, for example, that in New York three thousand workmen at Studbowker's waggon works have gone out on strike owing to the proprietor using material received from Carnegie's works.

The case of the soldier James, who was suspended by the thumbs for cheering the man who attempted to shoot Mr Fick, is exciting public indignation all over the United States. The Central Labour Union have demanded that the workmen in the National Guards shall resign. The Coroner's jury, meantime, have found that the men killed in the riot were killed while in unlawful assembly, incriminating nobody. But as for Carnegie himself, he is a friend of the workingmen. He subscribed largely, fer example to the fund for the return of Mr Keir Hardy. All the blame must be attributed to the managers — to whom for the last three years he has left the entire control of his works. — And who, by the way, has controlled the profits?

The Labour Commission report that from 14 to 16 hours is usually worked on English and Scottish railway lines. In this respect the Caledonian Company is the greatest offender. The commission report that many witnesses were terrorised .

Mr Tom Mann, recently addressing an aristocratic gathering, complained that " to-day 700,000 working men are without employment, not loafers, and not those that will not work, but men eager and willing to work, and the churches, instead of trying to assist the working classes in the endeavour to live more human lives, are callous and indifferent." " And I," he adds, "am a rebel, a determined rebel, against the institutions which do nothing to better the lot of the working man." — The Churches, but not the Church. "At this moment," writes the Holy Father, " the condition of the working population is the question of the hour ; and nothing can be of higher interest to all classes of the State than that it should be rightly and reasonably decided,"

A deputation of the Christchurch unemployed waited on tbe Mayor on Friday morning, and stated that they wanted work, as many of their number were starving, There were 300 unemployed on the books of the Labour Bureau, The Mayor promised to communicate with the Minister for Labour and see if anythicg con Id be done for them.

The prcceeds of the Mount Morgan mine for the last half-year were £504,200. The amount paid in salaries and wages was £56.000.— Here also a few bonuses would hardly seem out of place. However, let us do jus' ice :we hear nothing of a proposal to reduce wages.

" The Silver Age, a Broken Hill paper, publiehes an account of a visit to the Proprietary Mine made secretly by a miner, who alleges that immense destruction is going on through the collapse of the timbers supporting tbe drives."— Thiß is only what was to be expected from the accounts given of tbe condition of the mine and the desperate attempt made at timbering when the strike seemed imminent. The wonder is that the miner was not afraid to risk his Ufa m the adventure.

Mr Gladstone's dealing with a deputation from the London Trades Council who waited on him on June 16, to seek his support for the eight hour's legislation, was very frank. He firmly declined to take the matter up at the sacrifice of the Home Rule cause, as Borne membera of the deputation urged on him. If they were satisfied on the point he sincerely wished them success, but be declared that they must not look to him, for be was bound in honour and character to the Irish question. He appealed to the services he had rendered the industrial classes by helping to put them in possession of the franchise, by which they would be enabled to govern them* selves. It was his desire, he said, to perfect this instrument. He added that they must judge of what little future lay before him by his past. Mr Gladstone seemed to doubt the assurance given by the deputation that the working classes were unanimous in their desire to have the term of eight hours fixed by law. He also expressed a fear as to an interference with liberty. The Btrength of the working classes, he declared, lay in holding to the principle of liberty.

Notwithstanding the assurance of unanimity pressed on Mr Gladstone, the workingmen throughout the country appear by no means unanimous. For example, Mr Foster, secretary of the Cokemen's Association, says he firmly believee that a legal eight hoars' day would annihilate the Durham coke trade. Mr Robert Enight, general secretary of the Boilermakers' and Iron Shipbuilders' Society declares that the London men are ignorant of the working of the great industries of the country. A Legislative eight-hours' Bill, he says, is impossible and undesirable. Mr Ralph Young, secretary of the Northumberland Miners' Union, Bays the members of that body will have nothing to do with a legal eight-hours' day. Mr Gladstone, therefore, as we see, was fully justified in his doubts.

The labour bureau of Mr Balance's Government has been pre ceded in the State of Ohio, where, two years ago, an Act was passed for the establishment of wbat are called " free public employment offices." We are indebted to our contemporary, the Irish World, for the results aa given by the State Commissioner of Labour. " The Commissioner in his report for 1891 says he established offices in five of the municipal cities of the State. The number of situations secured through the offices was 8 982—5,575 for males and 3,407 for females. Thus 4905 per cent of the applications for employment were met by the offices, while 44*6 per cent of those applying for situations secured them ; 38*3 per cent of the men and 607 per cent of the women applying to the offices were furnished with positions. The Commissioner computes the entire coat of the offices up to January 1, 1891, at 5,000 dols. He estimates that the services of private offices in securing work for 8,982 persons would have cost these persons about 20,000 dols. Thus he shows a net money gain of 15,000 dols in six months to the working people of the State. He further claims that 100,000 dols is annually spent on private employment agencies by the working men and women of Ohio. This sum can be saved to the workers, he says, by a State expenditure of 10,000 dols." " This, of course," adds our contemporary, " is but a small fraction of the gains effected, as it deals only with the question of the ordinary outlay usually made in securing employment, and does not refer to the wages made by thosa securing employment, which otherwise wouli have been lost to them till able to get woik through their own endeavours, The experiment is worthy of earnest trial, and the first reports of the Ohio Labour Commissioner give assurance that Buch institutions, wisely directed and kept from partizan or other partial influences, might exert a very beneficent influence and amply rep*y the State for the very Bmall outlay required in establishing them."

The most important resolution passed last week at the railway servants' conference at Wellington seems to be that for the appointment of a board of appeal in each centre, to adjudicate in casea of

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grievance. Mr Hoban was re-elected president of the society, Mr Handiside vice-president, and Mr Edwards general secretary.

Tbe following resolution was passed by the monthly meeting of tb» Operative Tailors' Society, held last week in Dunedin :—": — " That this society sympathise with the shop assistants in their endeavour to obtain shorter hoars of labour, and will do all in their power to assist them in obtaining the same, and also request the members to refrain from shopping after 6 p.m."

A meeting of members of the Pastora iat Union of South Australia and West Darling, held at Broken Hill, and representing an ownership of ovti 1,000,000 sheep, have fixed the wages for rouseabouts at 25s a week with rations, the rate for shearing to be the ordinary amount, viz., £1 per hundred sheep. Shearing commences in the districts concerned about the middle of this month — rather later than usual owing to the unfavourable condition of the sheep. Borne slight disturbances, meantime, have occurred on stations in Victoria. At Nocoleche the ronseabouts demanded an increase of wages, and one of their number who expressed himself contented was illused. The malcontents, however, were sent about their business and other men engaged in their place. Shearers also on their way to Tinapagee and Berawinna Downs station were mobbed by men asserting themselves to be unionists.