TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 33, 8 February 1905, Page 10

TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

—■— I (By Industrial Tramp.] i Saddle and harness-making is still good. | The coach-building trade in the city is fairly brisk. ! The furniture-making trade throughout the colony is dull. j Trade, generally speaking, in the city j is good, although a few trades are rather overstocked. ! The Arbitration I otirr will sit in | Auckland either tbe last week in this ; month or at the beginning of next. The building Trade in Wellington is i fair, and first-class tradesmen arc work- ' ing full time. Tlie -awmilling industry both in town | and country still continues good, and first-class men readily obtain employ- j ment. ', Things generally speaking are still bad | in Australia, and numbers of workmen j are arriving here weekly from that i country. The bnilding trade in Auckland is still I somewhat overstoi-keil. consequently a number of men are out of employment. The strike of cotton mill operatives at Fall River. Massachusetts, still continues. Several thousand non-union workers have been secured, and many of the mills are running. Maggie McNeil, a Nottingham maker. has failed to get i-ompensation for lost sight owing to a needle sticking in her eye whilst opening a drawer at the factory in which she was employed. It was held that the nredlc was her private prtJperty. and this view the ' fridge upheld, although expressing ~or- { row for the girl. In the unemployed discussion in the Edinburgh Parish Council it was pointed "»"t that the worker who had fallen tpon hard 1-imes. had but two courses by i which he might qualify for relief from I the rates for himself or his family, i 'hie was to break down in health, and the other was to commit a crime. J Mr Herbert Gladstone, the Liberal Whip, speaking the other day. Said he did nor see why the Government itself should not organise work for the unemployerl in localities where they coulri not find it for themselves. It was the duty of the fJovernrae.nt in times of great distre-s. when thousands of men were out of employment, and the- existing machinery- was not tit to cope with the difficulty to deal with it. The American Car and Foundry Company, the largest railway waggon carriage concern in the world, with l."> larcre works in the I'nited States, have acquired a site in TatTord Park. Manchester. They are under contract to I supply rolling stock for the Baker-street and Waterloo Underground Railway. I The labour needed on their first order j will, it is said, mean £ 15.000 to ' ±•20.000 in local wages. The steel work I wall be imported ready-made from j .America. The Wellington Trades and Labour Council are moving in the direction of introducing an Alien Restriction Bill, j Judging by the numerous arrivals of j Chinese, in this colony the poll tax im- \ posed by the G-overument is of little ! uho. The Chinese, after having de- i stroyed the fruit trade so far as the ' white merchants are concerned, are now I entering the furniture-making market, and the Wellington Council considers that unless some measures are speedily taken to restrict the influx, other trades will be invaded to the detriment of the New Zealand workers. A great deal of interest is being taken this year in the Wellington City Council elections by the worker. It is | the intention of tlie newly-formed Labour League to run a ticket and j strong endeavours are To be made to | put workers in the Council. People are afraid to travel by sea, | and take out accident policies, but there are many legitimate occupations that, kill as certainly as the most illrpgulated steam engine. But you cannot frighten the workmen who know 'how dangerous is their trade, and noteven higher wages will tempt them from 6uch death traps. Lead, for instance, is death-dealing to all who use it in iheir work, as house painters, gilders, calico printers, type founders, potters, and braziers. Mercury is a foe to life. Those wno make mirrors or thermometers, who etch, or colour wool or felt, will soon feel the effect of the nitrate of mercury in teeth, gums, and ■fhe tissues of the body. Silver kills those who handle it. and photographers, makers of hair dyes, and ink. and other preparations, ere long turn grey, while a deadly whiteness subdues them, and Boon they succumb. Copper enters into the composition of everyday life, and too soon those -who work in bronzing and similar decorative process lose teeth snd eyesight, and finally life. Herr Sehcr! has propounded an extraordinary scheme for promoting thrift among the German working classes. The German workman is a gambler—not. indeed, a bom gambler, for gamblers, unlike poets, are made, not horn, in Ger■mauy —made by The State which finds its account in their steady patronage of the national lotteries. Hen Scherl ha< conceived the idea of utilising the workman's passion for gambling us a means to make him save. His plan is that The savings bank rate of interest should ~be paid on deposits, but not To the individual depositors. It should be pooled in a common fund, and then divided into prizes to be drawn for. As the deposits would remain intact, the depositor would enjoy all the pleasure of playing for high stakes without any possibility of losing his money. He would, indeed, sacrifice his interest: but. as the rate is low and his capital small, the sum actually forfeited would be so minute a- to be negligible. The Chicago cloth hat and cap makers, who have been on strike for some rime, are jroirg :o start a JL--2000 factory of their own. According to the members of a deputation .if (barters Towers (Q.) unemployed who waited on the Mayor re calling a public meeting, there are over 700 men out of work in that town, many of whom recently came from the surrounding districts. The Wpstralian Arbitration Court's award in the dispme between the Eastern Goidfields Tailors" Union and the employer* fixes the minimum wa*e for male adults at £4 5/ per week %' 48 hours. All made-to-measure orders have to be made in the workshop and no work is to be done in squads or on -tlie table-' system, nor on Sunday A tailor died in Chicago at the ajre of 33. and the doctor gave the cause of his prCm I tUre senili <y " other words, the tailor died of old age' \ resident of a college settlement made an investigation, and found that the tailor Had been running a sewing machine ever since he had been a sis-year -old boy.

Hard work had stopped his growth, and made liim an old man at a time when he should have been in the prime of his manhood. Latest American Labour papers state I lhat the strike of miners in the TelluI ride district has been called off, the mine owners having conceded the eight-hour 1 day and the minimum wage demanded Iby The union. One paper says. "While i the miners have not -won a complete vici lory, the mine-owners failed" in their effort To destroy the. union, reduce wages, and lengthen henrs of toil: and they spent a good imaiy millions to achieve that utter failure." Taist week I gave a statement made before a New South Wales Commission, to the effect that many of the marine accidents were due to tlie officers being overworked. In this connection the master of a small steamer employed on one of our navigable rivets sends mc the following summary of his wpek's work: Saturday. 8 a.m. till U. 30 p.m.: Snnday. 10 a-m. till (j p.m.: Monday. S a.m. to 11.30 p.m.: Tuesday. ,2.4.) a.m. till 12.15 p.m.: Wednesday 4.15 a.m. till 7.30 p.m.: Thursday. 8 a.m. to 10, p.m.: Friday. 2.30 a.m. to 12 p.m. "Of course." he writes, "ii (Inc.- not make up such a large.numbrr of hours in the week —106 —but when a man has been on the gy> continually 12 hours it begins to tell on him. (frn oue occasion 1 got up at 4.40 a.m. and -worked right through till •> a.m. the fallowing morning, went home, had one hour's sleep, and was up again and worked till 111 p.m. So you see we have some, prettylong watches, .jnst for the want-of more responsible men in the boats. River boats are not made To curry certificated mates, and tbe whole responsibility is therefore thrown on the master." The "'Labour Gaszelte" reports as to the conditions of employment, etc. in Great Britain during the month of October. 1004 as fodlows: On the whole employment in Ofc-tober was dull, and about the same as a month ago. A further decline took place in the shipbuilding and engineering trades, but. on the other hand, employment in the cotton, woollen, and tinplate industries continued to improve. As compared with a year ago a. general decline in employment was shown, except in the cotton and tinplate industries. In the 272 trade-unions with an aggregate membership Tif 570.042 making returns, 30.396 (or O.S ppr cent.) were reported as unemployed at the ea>d of October, compared with 0.8 per cent, at the end of Septemberr. 1904. and 5.8 per cent, at the end of October. 1003. Inquiries are being made-with a view to providing work for the unemployed in North Queensland^ Sydney Pain-her** Union reports an increase of 80 lmpmbers during the past half-year, making the dotal membership nearly 500. Trade is reported to be unusually dull. The Trolly. Draymen and Garters' Union. Sydney, finished the year with a credit balance of £378. after parting up over £400 costs orf arbitration litigation. Sevcn+y new members joined. bringing the membership roll up to 1350. Engineering trade in Sydney is reported to be dull, but that indications pointed to a slight improvement. The police of Lucerne. Switzerland, have :i well-organised trade union of their own. Its president is a. SocialDemocrat of the most pronoimeed type. Describing the neglect shown towards the unemployed by the powers that be. an English writer ptits it this way: "■the unemployed are collected, and parcelled, and red-taped, and decimal-frac-tioned and .-rneraged. and sorted, and added up. and divided, ami subtracted, an e.quatioued. as if they had no more nerves than protoplasmic da.bs of mud.'' Some day. mayhap, the unemployed will brace their nerves, and then there will be work. The of the West Australian labour Bureau in his annual report states? that the experience during the -past year has been that mo really •carrah-le- .and trustworthy man has remained long unemployed, "fieneraOly speaking work has been plentiful. | There arc. however, a number of respectable, elderly men, who find it increasingly dafficnlt to obtain employment. Of 5213 applicants for employment "2447 were from Victoria, 1213 from Sonth Australia, and 967 from New South Wales.