AWARD OR STATUTE?

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2203, 16 July 1914, Page 8

AWARD OR STATUTE?

■ INCIDENT ■■-";:'■■" V COUNCIL. .. " ffly Telesra-Dil—?ie3S Aascclatlou.) > 'Christcliurch, July 15! . -The curious spectacle was seen toin a sitting of tho Conciliation Co hricil weighing a motion which.on the face of it sOemed 'usurp some of tho;powers of the Legislature. In ! il(s bald form the-.motion read: "In the!event of any legislation being passed 'affecting the hours of work in woollcin mills, such legislation shall have no >fffect during the currency of this award." To explain itho position it should be said; that the/woollen mills, which cmploy' large liumbors of females and boys; now ivork fortv-cight hours per ' week, and tliat Mr. T. M. Wilford, M.P.. has Linrtroduced an amending Bill in Parliamcrrt to limit the hours of women workers to' forty-five:; Tho employers' assessors, before cntcringupon consideration of the claims made to-day, wanted the question of. hours settled, and. suggested some agreement to this. ipno of tbs Labour ni.en responded by proposing the motion quoted, and they, matter was dropped for the time being, the employers understanding that'tlio proposal had been agreed to. ■-'(.- _ At the <and of tho sitting this question cropped up again, and the! unionmen werof-then loud in. their denial of any such jtnotion. Ono individual wont so far as Ik) say to the "Press" reporter that if; bb-reported tho motion they would repudiate it. The fear of th* Labour_ rpen was that if any publicity were eivian to what the employers certainliirregarded as an agreement, any chance off Mr. Wilford's Bill passing Parliam«Dt would be gone. ■ In the-course of his lecture on townplanningj at the Town Hall last even-, ing, Mri;C: r .C. Reade dwelt at length on the by the land speculator in Vapidly-growing cities. Ho instanced (and showed plans of) an estate iii;*'Au'ckland, where i block of about JjEj acres had in ISOl.been valued at £3&i}3. . Two years later it was sold to Vspetula'tors for £11,500. They spent .£7600'-. in reading the block, and cut-it iip'-iiito sections"(4oft. by 112 ft.), and sold for £30,000, and how. tho Aucklatnd City Valuer's estimate of the value iof the block was £78,060. Mr. Reade. also made reference to the goldoip opportunity Wellington City had had of acquiring- J!iramar in 1905 for someihing like £300,000, and sta.ted that its value in 1910 was something 1 likfl,£7oo,ooo,