/HE QUESTION OF AGREEMENTS.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14841, 5 December 1913, Page 8

/HE QUESTION OF AGREEMENTS.

STATEMENT BY MR DOWGRAY. (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEO-AM.) WELLINGTON, December 4. Referring to the statement by the Employers' Defence Committee, identifying the Federation of Labour with the 1.W.W., 'Mr J. Dowgray,. acting-. president of the United Federation, said the statement was full of errors. There had been a confusion of tho United Federation of Labour with the Federation of Labour. The. two organisations were not the same. The preamble of the Federation of Labour, which was so like that of the 1.W.W.. was not th© preamble of the ' United Federation of Labour. As the president of the Millorton Miners' Union for seven years, Mr Dowgray said there had been no breach of agreement or loss of a single day through breach of agreement on the part of the miners of Millorton, and the same thing applied to other miners. '■. True, there was a stoppage at the Stockton mine, but that -had nothing to do with agreements or "breaches of agreements. Then th© Federation ordered members back to work,' and they went back. "AlLagree- ,, ments we, as miners, have made with employers have been kept," said Mr Dowgray. "I have never signed an agree- • ment which I have hot had kept by the miners, and no trouble about them has arisen, and my word is my bond., It was with tho miners that the Federation originated." . •