Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1901. TRADES AND LABOR COUNCIL.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 21 February 1901, Page 2

Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1901. TRADES AND LABOR COUNCIL.

For tho first, time in the history of Greymouth wo have a Trades and Labor Council sitting in our midst and discussing not only matters immediately connected with labor, hut problems of a far wider nature, such as tho incidents of taxation, and nationalisation of the lands of tho colony. It is very pleasing indeed to note the quiet, temperate manner in which the business of tho Council is dealt with. Matters affecting individual unions, nay, individual persons, are approached in a broad and liberal spirit, and with an entire absence of feeling. This feature our readers who have watched tho “warm”—not to use a stronger terra - passages that too often take place in Local Bodies, and even in our House of Representatives, when such subjects crop up, will appreciate this distinct feature of the Council's proceedings. Another pleasing element is the evident determination to avoid entrenching upon the rights of others. While the members of tho Council speak out very plainly on matters dealing with Labor’s rights and laws, they as firmly oppose any measure which to their thinking impinges unjustly upon the investor or capitalist. This spirit is a most laudable one, and one that makes the deliberations of the Council worthy of weight and cqpai deration. No one can listen wUmnft being convinced of

the earnestness of members, their acquaintance with their subject and their liberal manner of dealing with same. When they are discussing minute details of a technical character —which they thoroughly understand they would at times puzzle a Philadel' phia lawyer, but upon ordinary questions their arguments are always logical and reasonable. In their President, they have a gentleman of sound sense, and one not likely to be carried away with every wind that bloweth, while the Council’s Secretary is a perfect model of what a member and executive officer should, be; Of the members of the Council ds a whole we cannot speak too highly. Their debates are terse and instructive—and this cannot always be said of debates in our Parliament ; while the grasp that some of them possess of the more complex problems of life indicate that the Government of this colony would not suffer if placed in the hands of gentlemen like those now holding session in Greymouth.