LABOUR, WAGES & RENTS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1836, 23 August 1913, Page 5

LABOUR, WAGES & RENTS.

(By Telegraph.—Special Correspondent,) ■ ' ' Auckland, August 22. A meeting of ..railway men was held yesterday evening in the Men's Club room, Newmarket, to hear addresses from Mr. D. M'Laren, organiser of the United Labour Party, and the Hon. George Fowlds. Mr. M'Laren dealt with • the history and development of trades' unionism, and emphasised the point that the unit&l Labour Party was founded on the principle of maintaining existing Labour organisations, preserving their full'rights of local autonomy, combining them in the one party on tho line of co-operative action, and using, political means (as well as industrial) towards the solving of the economic problem. The question of real wage standards (or the purchasing power of the cash received) could, he maintained, only be detylfc with properly by political action.

Mr. Folwds sketched the attempts made ti solve the problem of' wages, and the increased oost of living, by means' of arbitration and ty strikes. Ho maintained that any advantages 1 gained •by such', means were more than offset by tho increase in land values, which was a tax upon the people's labour. The' rent problem, he said, was one that the could not yet away from, and only by political. means could it lie effectively grappled with. | Both speakers emphasised the worse than uselessness of strike methods.