Labour Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 20, 3 March 1893, Page 6

Labour Notes.

The rtflux into New Zealand sill continues. The cxc ss of arrivals over departures for January was 1825, the majority of tbe arrivals be'ng adnlt m'ili-s and coming fiom New South Wales. There are no particulars ghen as to the special localities to which the immigrants are bound, but that no doubt depends on how on arriving they may form their plans, at leist in those cases where the object is a search for employment. In these cases what will determine the destination of ihe immigrants is doubtless tbe rate of wages in the different localities.

In reality (writes Mr C. S. Devas in his " Political Economy ") the difficulties of finding oat real wages are so serious that they often baffle the researches of educated men with abundance of time to make the inquiry. Thus the statistician,* Mr Bevan, remarked some twenty years ago that the question of wages was always a difficult one about which to gain accurate information ; and it was poioted oat by Cliffa Leslie how in England working men often did not know etch other's wages even in the same town and in closely cognate branches of trade ; and that there was great variety in the amount of labour exacted and in the enforcement of fines and deductions from wages in different workshops even in the same trade. More recent inquiries meet the same difficulties. The bewildering complexity of wages in Bast London and the difficulty of ascertaining them appear in the volume by Mr Cbarles Booth, where also Miss Collett observes bow 'no two factories in any of the minor industries can be relied upon to have the same system of engaging and paying learners ' and how employers are in some cases anxious and able to conceal what wages they actually pay. Again it is so difficult to compare the condition of miners in different parts of England, that the attempt to do so, as a means of providing data for arbitration has had to be abandoned. Similarly in manufacturing Belgium, in the great city of Liege a practical institution called the Labour Exchange has, after a fruitless attempt, found it needful to

leave off publishing statistics of actual wages, as the variety of contracts and the variety of conditions in piece-wages rendered the statistics delusive.

A Turkish cooeul in one or o her of the Australian capitals bag pot in a plea for the Syrian immigrants, whim he would not have confounded with the Chinese or the coloured people from other parts of the world. It cinnot, however, be too strongly insisted upon that the exclusion of the members of any particular race is out of keeping with that doc rioe of universal brotherhood, in proclaiming which i hose who the most determinedly claim the exclusion in question are loudest mouthed. Not that we believe in throwing the colonies opt-n to an A'ia'ic invasion. But neither do we believe in the cry of universal brotherhood as our inconsistent philosophers give it utteriDce. Logical conclusions we recognise, but logical cone usii ns, from false premises, must sometimes end by landing a man in the mad-house or by rendering him, if judged by results, fit to be placed th'*re. As G>orga Eliot says in one of her works, it is the province of c< mmon seuee to te«eh an avoidanca of extremes. The colonial Socialist is cor.sisteni but unwise, when he demands a community of goedd as thai which alone can settle the social question. He is inconsistent but sensible whtin he demands the exclusion of ualinaiteJ Asiatics. The Syrians, we are told, are, in their own country, a people of many virtues and capable of much that is good and useful. But Beeing the need that their country has of improvement, is it not jtfit as well that they should stay ihore and exercise their faculties in the woik required ?

The balance-sheet of the latti Defence Committee at Broken Hill shows th« amount of rece pts from all sources to have been £27 957 Ibe sum ar>f>pir» a large one, but wb nit is considered that it went to t.uppoTt <ur some mou'h < t population of about 5000 people, it fcei ms i viduLt that it was qm'e m^ufficieut to avert bar - ship and buffering. Decidedly a strike should be the last resource, and only to be thought of in deepera'e circumstances,

Agricu'tural depression is still severely felt in some parts of Great Britain. A correspondent, for example, writes as follows from Essex to the Daily Newt :— " Meetings are to be held in all parts ofi Essex in connection with the movement for impressing upon the Government the unparalleled depression whioh has fallen upon agriculture. The deputation which is to wait upon the Prime Minister will be a very strong one, and will comprise landlords, tenants, and labourers. As an instance of how the depression is affecting tbe landlord?, it may be mentioned that tbe rent Lord Brooke has received from the tenants on theiEaston Lodge estate during the last half-year is barely sufficient to pay the tithes, rates, snd taxes on the property, and he says that unless things mend he will have to shut up his house. He has spent between £60,000 and £70,000 in farm buildings and improvements on the estate daring the last few years.

It is cheering to see that the President of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce reports favourably of tbe put year. The business done in Auckland, he said, bad been larger and sounder than had been the case for a long time previously. " Money," he added, " was plentiful for all legitimate enterprises j there was more money in th* colony than demands of trade and commerce appeared to be able to absorb. Ths returns showed that a greater number of people were making homes in the Auckland district than in any other part of tbe colony, while in imports Auckland was the first port in the colony, and was not far behind in exports," But let us hope that the President apoke positively as well as comparatively. We would fain believe that the settlement referred to is, in fact, extensive. Bona fide advancement in any part of the colony must necessarily serve to advance th« prosperity of the whole.

An inquiry made into the nature of ths lead works in England by tbe London Daily ChronicU reveals a frightful state of things, more par icularly where the women employed in the trade are con* cerned. A doctor at Newcastle on Tyne, who hai made a particular study of the matter, describes the effects as follows : — " A young woman who enters a lead factory as a healthy sobject will, afte r %

shorter or longer time, become thin and anaemic, have sick headaches, followed by obscuration of vision and hysteria. Then she is suddenly seized with a convulsion. More convulsions follow, nntil she dies. If she recovers from the convulsions she often loses her eyesight, temporarily or permanently. Colic is a common result of leadpoisoning, and this leads to paralysis and decay." In fact, the system may be described as murderous. Suicidal is not the word, because no young woman enters the works, much less remains there, for, besides their pestilential character, the labour is terrible, unleßS she is absolutely driven by starvation to do so. It seems a case in which there is an absolute demand for some invention of machinery to save human life.

One of the most hopeful and cheering signs of the times foreBhadowing the future of the Cburch and the people (says the Liverpool Catholic Timet) is the association of the Catholic clergy and laity in social work, a practical outcome of the Pupal Encyclical on the condition of labour, which will be chronicled by historians as an. event of the epoch-<naking order. This is especially observable in Germany. Besides the Popular Bank (Baiff isun) the German Catholics have created a Peasants' Association with the object of safeguarding the intercuts of the rural classes, helping them to pay their debts, protecting them against usurers, and forming a regular rural Corporation. The Society has its board or tribunal of arbitration, institutes of credit and insurance, and aff jrds the inhabitants of the country every facility for the acquisition of machinery, seed, and other things necessary. The clergy h*ve not remained outside this movement, but zealously second it and recommend it to their parishioners. At Treviri a prieat, Father Desbacb, has established seven prosperous publications, created a Peasants' Association, which contains 12,000 asbocintes, and has for five years fought against Hebrew usury, engaging in 731 law suits, of which it has gamed 143, lost 46, and amicably settled 289 This priest has also founded an Agricultural Bank, with an available capital of 30,000 m-ikn, which h.b lisea to more than 1,000,000 maiks. About 3,500 co*s, bulls, and other live stock were supplied to ihe peasantry on an easy payment system. To this is joined an Assurance Society against

mortality among cattle. The German aristocracy, as well as the clergy, have helped the work, and 100,000 associates of the agrarian associations form a strong bulwark against socialism. Tba example of self-helpfulness given by the German priests and people is worthy of imitation in other countries.

Perhaps there may be something in it. It is argued in support of keeping on the Queen's buck-hounds, which it is proposed to abolish, that, without them, the neighbourhood would be deserted by the county families, who would winter abroad. — "The neighbouring towns and villages would lose the custom of the great houses, there would be a general dismissal of hunt servants, both in stables and kennel*, and tbe grooms, in many cases, would also be dispensed with." Can England at present, in fact, afford to add to her army of unemployed f The abolition of the buck-hounds is proposed chiefly on the grounds of cruelty to animals. But, after all, deer must die. Suppose they are left till old age does its work. Can there be anything more miserable than an old beast dying by inches? Even the tenderness that shrinks from cruelty to animals may, perhaps, be carried too far. If it entails the risk of want among human beings we should B-iy most decidedly it is so.

Our contemporary, the Liverpool Catholic Titnet, is not very happy in certain remarks he makes, to the effect that the appointment of workingmen to the Legislative Council of New Zealand may be taken us foreshadowing tha arrival of Mr Frederick Harrison's sweeps in the House of Lords. The matter, in fact, is only an innovation in appearance, and colonial Councils, and colonial Ministries have all along numbered among their members workingmen. True the workingmen in question wore broad-cloth instead of the more homely moleskin— but eiterior differences of that kind can hardly pass for much among sensible people. The man must not be judged by his coat, nor even by the money-making or pushing qualities tbat perhaps alone have enabled him to don the more costly attire. We Bee, by the way, that the Ministry of New South Wales have repudiated with indignation the suggestion that they were about to follow the example of the New Zealand Government. The considerations, however, to which we have referred will point out the consistency of their pro'estation. If the admission of workingmen as legislators in the colonies paved the way for Mr Harrison's sweeps, they might long since have been amoog their Lordships.