The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 1911. THE BRITISH LABOR TROUBLES

New Zealand Tablet, 31 August 1911, Page 1693

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 1911. THE BRITISH LABOR TROUBLES

wfiw lIESE are stirring times for England; and jJa \\M m the great heart of the Empire they are sFll \ L makm g histo1 7 apace. Less than a month ag ° the Parliament Bill passed its final f &ges and a revolution— indeed, X 4S& T f 3 character— was accomplished. And the fp* last few weeks have been marked by a revolt of the organised workers, which, in its extent, in the carefulness with which it was planned m the,swiftness of its execution, and in the completeness of its success, has not been paralleled for many a year. The crisis is, happily,-for the present, almost past, and matters are rapidly approaching settlement: but the movement will at the best be only temporarily stayed. Mr. Tom Mann, who appears to have been tnev directing spirit J of . the rising has plainly intimated that, the solidarity of Labor having been completely .established, the present movement will be but the prelude to still further demands. And we believe »mi fW 'f £ matfce Mr v Mann knows whereof he affirms, the soW truth™* 8 "** '.**. b ° mbast bufc

’ While everyone deplores and reprobates the violence that has accompanied the agitation, it is safe to say that even in England—and certainly in democratic New Zealand- there is widespread, sympathy with the* workers general demands. On almost every hand it is admitted that the claim for better conditions is fully justified by the facts of the case. ‘The nation,’ says the Westminster Gazette, referring to the original seamen s strike which started the present general outbreak, has a vast interest in the questions which lie at the root of the , strike. Englishmen will show less and . less disposition to go to sea if wages do not bear a proper proportion to those paid on shore. . . . Take which view you like and there still remains the solid ground which has brought thousands of men to strike, even though they are bound by no strong organisation. Whatever else the Shipping Federation has done it has been able to keep wages down. On the day that the national movement sprang into being it was recorded that : several crews were signed on at Cardin at the average rate of .£4 a month.” Just twenty years ago the writer went to sea in a tramp steamer carrying coal from the Tyne in which the wages of both sailors and firemen were £4 15s per month. Those were the ordinary conditions of the port. Twenty years have passed, and wages are lower than they were at the commencement of that period. • . • • /Whatever benefits the Shipping Federation has given, the shipowner has had his compensation in full measure and flowing over. Nobody need go beyond the figures here quoted to arrive at an understanding of the unrest of those who ;go down to the. sea in ships. Wages on land have gone up. In the mercantile marine they have . ; gone down, 1 The seaman cannot be kept blind to that contrast.’ r .. 1

;:'.;. ;;;•,.•/•'""■':•'.'■":''• .:■'" "' *.'■".'■ '■'■'.- .""' '. " 'rT'i "■ '•' - :--::S . It is not even correct, as this writer states, that wages on land in England have gone up. * Nominally they have risen, but relatively to the increase in the cost of- living, they have actually, gone down. Mdo not think -.it. is generally realised,' says the eminent economist, Mr. Chiozza Money, M.P., in an article in the Nation, 'that, during the last fifteen years—and fifteen years is no small part of an average lifetime —the wages of the British workman have fallen. And Mr. Money gives a remarkable set of figures in proof of his contention.. The. main items/shown by percentages, for the years 1895 to 1910 are the following:— Items x 1895 1910 . Wages ... ... ... 89.1 101 Wholesale Prices ... 91.0 108.8 Retail London Prices ... 93.2 109^9

-vi S effect L of these three items is to show that wfiile m fifteen years wages have only increased 13 3 per cent., wholesale prices have increased 19 5 per cent., and retail prices 17.9 per cent ; or, as Mr. Money Ei iq We S6e * hat ' while mone y wages have increased about 13 per cent., retail prices have increased so much that real wages have fallen in the fifteen years And at the same time that wages have been falling and the poor are thus becoming poorer, the rich are becoming richer—the incomes and profits of those who come within the range of the Income Tax Department having enormously increased. Mr. Money finds that in til Come yea T7J 895 , t 0 191 °- the , gr ° SS —ssments to So 9 nnnnm haV6 increased by a total of £402,000 000 a year, or 59 per cent. The average rncome, too 0 f the income-taxpayer has increased fy per cent., or from an average of £698 to £964 We are now enabled,' he says, < to make a comparison 1895 19^0 Ve r ° f WageS and Prfits respectively. S 1895-1910, the money wages rose by about 13 per cent., while the wages of the income-tax classes, who with osTabTut To bG W V he "*™* f-e miLn >' rose about 30 per cent. ? or both classes alike, as for rnl If;? lddle classes that lie between them prices rose, but the great rise in the cost of living in the S?d means very much to the wage-earner, and very lrtte to the payers of income-tax.' " very tle * ' Britain has no system of compulsory arbitral™ and it is still a land of sweated industriesand^rSrfe

franchiseand these three factors must be f taken into consideration in! appraising and locating the ‘ moral responsibility for the recent strikes. Of the extent and ; intensity of the sweating evil in England we in New Zealand had ocular demonstration some four years ago, when an exhibition of Britain’s sweated industries not of all the industries in which sweating occurs, but of the chronically-sweated ones which live, as a regular thing, on the flesh and bones of the people—was sent round the Dominion. The authenticity of the' display was guaranteed by the New Zealand Agent General, and was never disputed in any single detail. The exhibition consisted simply of a collection of articles, made or partly made, with an accusing statement alongside each, setting forth the wages which the worker received, and the number of hours per day or per week that it was necessary for that worker to labor to earn a mattrass and a crust. The catalogue — lengthy includes 188 trades; and we give a few specimen statements, taken at random. At making helmet chains for the head-gear of soldiers, firemen, and policemen, 10s a week can be made by working eighteen hours a dag, from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. Paper-bag making, which is a machine industry in New Zealand, and pays one man £2 10s a week for tending one machine, is largely a hand industry in England, and 12 hours daily work returns 4s fid a week, less cost of paste and alum. Sacks yield 6s to 6s 3d per week, less cost of needles, etc., and the woman has either to carry the sacks (in 561 b bundles) from the factory and back, or pay 2d porterage. Boys’ knickerbockers are paid for at lid each (equal to about 9s per week, the worker paying for her own thread and sewing machine out of this) ; sailor suits, 13s 6d per week for 15 hours’ work per day, worker finding machine and thread. Children’s boots yield 7s 6d to 8s 6d net per week for something like 18 hours’ daily toil. (In New Zealand this work is paid at about Is per hour.) Then in England waistcoats are made for Id each, the worker finding the thread. Men’s trousers yield as much as ,7s 6d per week for 16 hours’ daily struggle (the New Zealand rate for women in this industry is 25s a week working 7 h hours per day.) Shirts return about 9s 6d per week for from 12 to 17 hours’ work per diem. And so we might go on, almost ad infinitum. The extent of the evil may be gathered from the fact that in one way and another sweated industries keep a good twelve millions of the British people on the very brink of starvation.

It would seem thatfor British statesmenthe obvious moral of the present situation is, as Sir William Jones has pointed out, the necessity for adopting something after our New Zealand system of compulsory arbitration, for the purpose of settling industrial disputes and of fixing a decent standard of wages in all the trades which come under the court’s jurisdiction. Such a scheme would not, of course, absolutely prevent the possibility of. strikes; but at least it would make them isolated and sporadic, instead' of beingas they have recently been in England—epidemic. Assuredly, unless remedial or preventive measures are taken, there are critical times in store.for England; and the candid representative of the Miners’ Union who, according to the cables, has just announced that the real trouble is only beginning, will probably be found to be very near the mark. Nor is the Home situation without its lesson for New. Zealand. For some years past there has been evidence of a decided disposition on the part of an extreme section of organised workers to break away from our arbitration system, and .revert to the old, barbarous; but, as they think, more effective weapon of the strike. Several unions latest being that numerically powerful organisation, the Auckland Tramways Union— cancelled their registration under the Arbitration Act, and thus withdrawn themselves entirely from the jurisdiction of the Court; and a small but noisy division of the Labor Party are openly calling upon the workers to abandon the methods of conciliation and arbitration, and to depend on. their old fighting spirit to secure justice. " The experience of England during the past few weeks should serve to bring home to us a sense of the priceless benefits of

arbitration; and should f stiffen up public opinion in this country to stand by and strengthen a system which, for the past seventeen years, has » operated in the direction ' of bringing to the worker higher wages> shorter hours, and better conditions jof work, to the employer stability of trade, and to ' the whole community, industrial peace. * .. .- /■-•,-.;';