CHEAP LABOUR A DENIAL.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 780, 1 April 1910, Page 6

CHEAP LABOUR A DENIAL.

[To the. Editor,] Sir,—Regarding paragraph published by your evening contemporary, and quoted by you in your columns under "Notes of the day," regarding services of shorthand writer, we are instructed by the conference to give the statement therein contained a most unqualified denial, as the same is a tissue of misstatements and misrepresentations of the facts in connection with the matter. We may say that when the question of a reporter came up for discussion, this conference in no shape or form expressed any 'opinion as to the remuneration for same, but declined to engage a reporter, as a very large part of the business had already been dealt with, therefore making the engagement of a reporter unnecessary. Regarding remarks as to living wage and sweating, it is to bo deplored that a journal of the status of The Doitu;ion should not have exercised more care than they have done in this case, in casting such a slur upon a body of men who have never,' in any shape or form, attempted such as your paragraph imputed to them ; but whose mission is in an entirely different direction. The following motion was carried unanimously:—"That this conference resent in the strongest manner possible the scurrilous attack made on Labour by the two Wellington papers, "The Evening Post" and The Dominion, and stigmatise the same as absolutely false and misleading, and published purely for the purpose of discrediting Labour generally."—We are, etc, ALFRED D. HART, President, JAS. BUCHANAN, Secretary, N.Z. Federated Painters' and Decorators' Industrial Association of Workers. [Our comments were, as stated, based on the paragraph published in our evening contemporary, and which in view of the details supplied wo assumed to be correct. Moreover, such inquiry as was made by us gave confirmation to the facts as so published. We wore informed, on what wo believed to be reliable authority, that the offer of 15s. per day was made; that a representative of the Journalists' Institute pointed out the unreasonableness of tho offer; and that the conference refused to increase the amount. We should be sorry to do the conference any I injustice, but if its actions in tho caso in question have been misunderstood the conference itself does not appear to be I entirely free from blamej