NEW ZEALAND.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 313, 14 January 1902, Page 1

NEW ZEALAND.

[By Telegraph—Press Association.] AUCKLAND, last night. The Arbitration Court’s award in the bakers’ dispute was given to-day. It grants masters an optional hour for starting in the morning ; nine and a half hours is fixed for a day’s work ; minimum wages, foreman £3 a week ; second hand £2 10s, other hands £2 os ; no more than two apprentices to he allowed to any business ; jobbers to be paid 10s a day ; no carter to be employed in any bakehouse in the manufacture of goods ; preference to be given to Unionists. In the plumbers’ dispute the hours of labor are made optional, but shall not exceed 47 hours per w r eek. Competent plumbers are to receive q. minimum wage of Is 2d j4er hour, other journeymen ,1s an hour ; on country work -3d an hour additional or free hoard and lodging. Preference to Unionists was not granted. Both awards hold until January, 1904. In delivering the' award in the bakers’ dispute, Judge Cooper said the Factories’ Act; of 1901 provided that in the baking trade the maximum hours should be 48 hours per week of 8-J hours a day He had to consider therefore whether the Court could impose longer hours than these, both employers and men being agreeable. In face of the Act, he considered, however, that the word “ limiting ” in subsection 3, section 18, of the Act, meant defining the limits, and that the Legislature intended the Court to have power to define the period of labor in any one day or week and intended to give the Court a free hand in dealing with the trade under the Act, subject to the exceptions under the Act. MASTERTON, last night, . The Labor Department has communicated officially with the Sergeant of Police at Masterton, advising him not to enforce certain provisions of the Factory Act ; consequently employers coming under the Act are not now compelled to give females and boys under 18 years of age a half holiday on Saturday. CHRISTCHURCH, last night. The Premier, in reply to Mr G. W. Russell’s telegram re horses for the Eighth Contingent, states that between one-fourth and one-fifth of the total number of horses purchased have” been bought in the South Island. Fifty-five alone have been bought in Christchurch. Very few were offered in the South Island, and the quality of those offering did not do justice to the breeders. Some of the horses purchased he saw in camp at Christchurch and gave instructions to weed them out, as to send them would he a slur on the horse-breeders of New Zealand. WELLINGTON, last night.

Mr Matthew Sharp, engineer of the steamer Huia, has been appointed inspector of Machinery and Engine Surveyor.

At the rifle match or the Petone Rifle Club on Saturday A. Ballinger and C. Trevithick put on the possible at 500 yards, and Ballinger also got within two points of it at 600. Lieut. W. I-I. Thompson, of Wellington, formerly of the Fourth Contingent, was offered lieutenancy in the Eighth, but finds that lie cannot accept it. Cunningham has been granted a commission and ordered to report himself at Addington. A number of returned troopers who have suffered from malaria or enteric managed to get into both North and South battalions. Instructions have been given to send all such men out of camp. At a lively meeting of the Painters’ Union, lasting until nearly 2 a.m., it was decided to instruct its delegates to the Trades Council to vote for the rescinding of the resolution against sending the Eighth Contingent, and also the anti-war expression of opinion. Three delegates thereupon tendered their resignation of that position. REEFTON, last night. A disastrous fire occurred last night. It originated in a bedroom occupied by a servant at Jones’s Railway Hotel. The hotel was destroyed, and the adjoining premises of Anderson, tailor, were gutted. The latter’s stock was saved. Meanwhile the fire extended to Scarlett’s Empire Hotel, on the other side of Jones’s, which, together with two small intervening tenements, occupied by Kelly, bootmaker, and Falconer, watchmaker, and the Palace Restaurant, were all destroyed. Dawson’s Hotel, opposite, ■and the adjacent buildings, had a'narrow escape. The total loss is estimated at £SOOO. Jones lost everything. The insurances are not yet ascertainable.

HAWERA, last night. A fire was discovered in the Empire Hotel kitchen last evening, hut was extinguished before much damage was done. This afternoon another fire occurred in one of the sitting-rooms, and the police arrested a man named John Savage on a charge of attempted arson.