WORK AND WAGES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2078, 13 May 1907, Page 3

WORK AND WAGES.

Press Association. —Copyright. GOLD-AHNERS STRIKE.

PRETORIA, May 10. The minors of tlio • Gelenliius, Ferreira, Crown, Deep, and other large Rand mines refused to join in the strike. Tlie Government are trying to effect a reconciliation.

Press Association. RECALCITRANT BUTCHERS. CHRISTCHURCH, last night. The slaughtermen who were fined as tlie result of -the recent strike at the freezing works, were given time in which to pay the amounts, but this leniency apparently miscarried in some cases, with the result that the payments in some cases have been long in coming to hand, while there were instances of a direct attempt to evade the fine outright. As reported at the time the ringleaders of the strike were Australians, with whom tlie Labor Department found great difficulty in dealing. Yesterday it was discovered that some of the men intended to default and leave by the Mahe.no for Australia. In the evening tlie Labor Department at Christchurch, acting on instructions from Wellington, caused a warrant for arrest to be issued against one of the suspected men, against whom writs of attachment had been issued by the Supreme Court; but the men paid the amount owing just before the warrant was to have been executed. There wore others about to leave the colony, and orders were taken out against their wages and held by the company. There is reason to believe that throe of the men left by the Maheno for Sydney, via Wellington, last evening, hut the amount of the wages held "will probably satisfy the amount of fines owing. C HINESE L AUN DRIES.

WELLINGTON, Saturday

At a meeting of the Trades Council a hope was expressed that next ses sion an amendment of the legislation weidd be introduced to bring Chinese laundries under the Factory Act, much on the linos of the law existing in Western Australia. MR. S. BROWN EXPLAINS.

AUCKLAND, Saturday. Mr. S. Brown, the employers’ representative on the Arbitration Court, writes to the Star, requesting publication of his reason for dissenting from the Waihi miners’' award. He says: “ALI former Presidents when in the district delivered their awards from the bench. I had my reasons all ready, and had the usual course been adopted they would have been delivered. The unusual course adopted by the President leaves me no other means of obtaining a fair place than to ask you to publish my reasons with this Setter. It has been the custom of former Presidents to read over tho completed award with members to see if it is correct. I have not seen the award. It was in rough manuscript notes till it appeared in the press. I have therefore no means of knowing if it is correct, and contains matters as they wore put. In bis delivery of the recent Gisborne judgment here, the President forgot to state I had dissented. No other President- ever forgot in like circumstances. (Signed) S. Brown.” The writer, after quoting Mr. Justice. Cooper on the point, asserts: The Court is not justified in increasing the rate ol wages because one or two employers are prosperous unless there, are other '•substantial reasons lor doing so, and we have also to consider what effect upon the industry and upon the workers themselves an increase would produce. In ids opinion there was not submitted substantial reason for the alteration, since the agreement made bv the miners themselves. He considers the alterations made may have a detrimental effect on the district, It will be more difficult to get foreign capital.