LABOR CONFERENCE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1552, 7 September 1905, Page 2

LABOR CONFERENCE.

THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECH,

By telegraph", Press Ass’n, Copyright

Received 10.4 p.m., Sept. 6. London, Sept. 6. The Durham Miners and Amalgamated Engineers’ Society were represented at the Hanley Conference after eight years’ absence. Mr James Sexton, President, stated that the Unemployed Act was a source of danger, enabling employers to point to the over abundance of labor as an excuse for cutting down wages, and enabling them to recruit blacklegs in time of dispute. Mr Sexton stated that freetrade had failed to settle or even touch the unemployed problem. No freetrade in tbe truest sense of the word existed without freedom of produce, not for the benefit of the few, but for all maukind. That could not be said; of the present freetrade. There was not enough for freetraders to proclaim against protection or Mr Balfour's preferential policy. Labor should demand much more than a policy that was negative or anti-Government, which so, far was all that was offered by those anxious to secure power. Labor must, bold aloof from all parties, exoept those assisting in sound progressive legislation.