WORK AND WORKERS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16487, 28 February 1914, Page 16

WORK AND WORKERS.

NOTES FROM NEAR AND FAR. THE MARCH OF EVENTS. (Bt Laboeo.) Wo liavo long thought, and the weight of opinion has been turning in the same direction, that the best way of dealing with the industrial problem would be to repeal the Act as it stood prior to last session, and leave in its place the admirable Lapour Disputes Investigation Aot placed upon the Statute Book by the present Government.

And this, in the local Reform journal, after weeks and months of industrial conflict, fought, wo were told by the same newspaper, to. uphold this very Arbitration Act. It really is a bit bewildering. \ Were we not told that the strikers were an Irresponsible minority of the workers and that the great body of trade unionists were satisfied to remain under the shelter of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act? On November 5 the same newspaper said, “ The Act was passed for tho benefit of the workers.” .Well, I’ll agree. It was passed for just that very purpose. Ana who is it going to be repealed for? Here is the answer, taken from the same source:—

Our arbitration law would 1 have broken down and have been discarded long ago were it not that tho employers were able to pass on to the public in higher prices some proportion, large or small, of the burden of ever-increasing pay-sheets, Nice frank avowal this—that! if the employers had not been able to pass on the extra cost they would have “discarded” tho Act. It is very seldom that our friends, the enemy, are quite as candid. The Aot was passed, they say, for the benefit of the worker, The Act mlist be repealed, they urge, for the benefit of the employers. Talk about the cloven hoof; nothing so trivial as that.

Really there is no need for us to worry. I know of one of the leading business men of this city who, when he had detected the new game, volunteered the opinion that such a development proved the truth of many prophecies made by the Red Feds and would go a long way towards justifying their actions in tho past year. I rather welcome this sort of tiling. One of my best friends, a whole-souled advocate of the claims of Labour, when he isn’t amusing himself by annoying me with the views of philosophic anarchists, urges with all earnestness the need' for bludgeoning Labour into a solid organised body. He says things like this:—“Make things that hot that they’ve got to organise. Hit 'em. Hit ’em that hard that they will have to get together, if only for self-defence. Throw whole chunks of Toryism at 'em, so that they will never want any more. Bind them so that they will know the value of liberty from now on. If I had my way, I’d so bully Labour that it would forget all about these little internal differences and divisions and would get together, keep together and fight together.” There is something in what my friends says and here comes the attaok on the workers’ collective rights. The Act served the employers well as a weapon to fight with when the strike was on. Now that peace has come and the strikers say “We will adopt this weapon,” then the other side want to scrap it. And why? Well, just because “This Act was passed for the benefit of the workers.” A few more motes like this and Labour will be united. More blunders of this sort and progressive sections of the community will realise clearly what a reactionary clique has coiitrol of the reins of government. I would rather have one direct blow at the workers, such as this is, than half a dozen palliative measures. Such measures might lull a few into sleep; one blow like this will make a might force of eleotors wide-awake. It is good for any movement to pass along a rough road. Experience is the great master, and the harder the experience, the more unpleasant it is, the deeper the lesson sinks into our minds. It look as though Labour is on the road with its problems before it but if we learn the lessons it will bo for our good. “ Democracy’s failures,” says Godkin, “have been serious and numerous, and there does not seem much chance of its doing better without experience. Experience is a master from whose chastening rod none can escape. To suppose it will not learn through mishaps and miscarriages would be to despair of the human race, for it is from suffering or failure that we have got most of the good things in civilisation.”

I was very much impressed with Mr Holman’s message to the workers of New Zealand given on the eve of his departure. He appeared, to me, to have grasped the vital fact —the need for patient preparatory work. Space docs not permit of my dwelling at any length on the message, but all being well I will mention it again next week. IN THE STATES. Mr Tom Mann recently returned to Great Britain from a visit to the United States. Dealing with Trade Unionism in America he says:—“As to organisation generally, there is less of it in the States than in England. Out of a total population of 95,000.000 of persons, about 18,000,000 of whom aro eligible for organisation, only 3,000,000 are organised; rather fewer than the total number organised in this country with less than half the total population, but with a larger percentage of that population eligible for industrial organisation. The American Federation of Labour claims to have an affiliated membership of 2,000,000, or twothirds of the total organised. Amongst those not- connected with the American Federation of Labour are the four Brotherhoods of Railroad Workers. It must be interesting to the locomotive engine drivers in Britain to know that their compeers in the United States receive £4O a month, and conductors (guards) from £2O to £3O a month—all as ( the direct outcome of organisation. “ The building trades are well organised, and the standard is more than twice ns high ns that of tho labourers in the steel works.

“Chicago is the second city for population in the United Stated and the building trades are pretty well organised. They work forty-four hours a week, eight hours on five days and four hours on Saturdays. The following correct list tells its own story:— Wages Per Hour Trade. (in Cents). Plasterers 75.00 Bricklayers 72.50 Carpenters 66.00 Plumbers 68.75 Structural iron workers . . 68.00 Stonemasons .... 72.50 Cement workers .... 62.50 Gas fitters 68.75 Hod carriers . . , <15.00 Labourers . . . . 37.60 “ The motal trades are poorly organised ; compare the following list with that of the building trades just given:— Wages Per Hour Trade. (in Cents). Boilermakers .... 40.00 Machinists (engineers) . . 89.00 Toolmakers 45.00 Patternmakers .... 47.50 Moulders 38.89

“ None of these are well organised. Now, take the painters, who are organised. They are receiving 65 cents an hour, and work a forty-four hour week, whilst the engineer gets 89i cents an hour, and works 494 hours a week.

“In the United States and Canada, it is estimated, there are about 1,250,000 machinists, that is, engineers, eligible to join an organisation like the Amalgamated Engineers, but the total number organised does not reach 100,000. Note the result: the engineer badly organised gets 12s a day,

whilst tho hod-carrier in the building trade, being organised, gets 16s a day, the painter gets 21s a day, and the bricklayer gets 23s 6d a day. As to the purchasing power of money, I estimate it to be one-fourth less in the United States than in the United Kingdom, so that the 16s a day received by tho hod-carrier would bo about equal to 12a in Britain, but in this glorious country tho hod-carrier is fortunate if he receives 7Jd an hour.”

FIRE FIGHTERS IN LONDON. A largely attended meeting of the members of the London Fire Brigade, which included representatives from every firo station in London, was held in London recently in connection with the newly-formed London County Council Fire Brigade Branch of the National Union of Corporation Workers. It was stated that there are now 1030 members of the branch out of a force of 1376, excluding the members of tho Croydon Corporation Brigade, who have come in since the formation of tho branch. Proposals liaye boen made by the Chief Officer of the Brigade to establish a standing committee, elected by tho men themselves, for the consideration of grievances, but the men have deoided not to vote for, or to form this committee, as they say they have completed their own arrangements in connection, with the Union for the promulgation, of their grievances. The meeting, which lasted for upwards of four hours, discussed in great detail the statement of grievances which they propose to present to the Chief Officer, in order that he may lay them before the Fire Brigade Committee of the London County Council. These include questions of leave, housing accommodation, uniforms, boys being compelled to leave home at an early age, weekly leave to be added to annual leave, reduction of the length of service for full pension from twenty-eight to twenty-five years, the amount of rent paid, the quality of the boots supplied, and the provision of a proper certificate of character on leaving the service. EVENING SCHOOLS. There was a letter from Lord Chelmsford in a recent issue of tlio 11 Times ’ which ought to be reprinted with copious notes, just as the classical gems of ancient literature are reprinted. It was a good letter—much more revolutionary than a member of the Labour Party would often care to write, anyhow. The point was that the employers are refusing to take advantage of the L. 0.0. evening continuation schools by allowing their youthful workers time to attend them. Lord Chelmsford gives some terrible figures. Out of 1640 cases investigated of boys under seventeen years only nine were working 48 or less hours per week; 276 were working 58 hours or under: and all the rest toiled between 60 and 70 hours. As tho writer of the letter says, it is useless to go on wasting money in providing education which it would be absurd to expect such slaves to use.

UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES. The unemployment figures published by the British “ Labour .Gazette ” bliow that out of a membership of 912,046 in the trade unions making returns, 2 per cent are always unemployed. Tins is the lowest figure since the trade boom of forty years ago. The Insurance Act, however, shows that in the building, shipbuilding and engineering trades the percentage of “ insured ” workers was 4.1 per cent. The labour exchanges aiBO show steady unemployment. In- November, 1912, the number registered was 21,749; in 1913 the number was 22,051. These figures prove that when factories and workshops are working at full pressure there are always two people out of every hundred out of work. ' Wages have shown a tendency to increase, and during the first eleven months a net increase of £148,316 in weekly wages was recorded. A PLUCKY FIGHT. It can at least be said of the outlook for the Labour movement in Russia that Government persecution and repression can hardly go further, so that it inay be hoped it will recede and that Labour will go forward. At the moment it i.s quite a notable occurrence for a Labour newspaper to have reached its century, not of years, but of days, and the “New Labour Gazette,” , of St Petersburg, lias just been making a jubilee of the event of its not yet having been killed. Of its hundred numbers, however, twentyfive have been confiscated under one pretext or another, for commenting on the Labour movement or even for reporting the debates in the Duma. During the four months of its publication it lias had thirteen editors, twelve of whom have been imprisoned, one of them under a sentence of nine months and three for six months. On the day of the publication of the hundredth number of the “New Gazette,” “Truth” (“ Za Pravdu”), another Labour journal, was suspended by order of the Court. SOCIALIST UNITY. At Glasgow during the Labour Party Conference, there was a series of demonstrations at which representative speakers of the Fabian Society, 1.L.P., and British Socialist Party appeared oil tho same platform. Similar gatherings will follow at Manchester, Birmingham. Cardiff, Newcastle, Leeds, and, finally, in London on March 15. after which the unity proposals will be commended to the annual conference of the respective bodies. The scheme provides for action through a United Socialist Council on which the societies will be represented equally, conditional on their affiliating to the Labour Party. NOTES. The Scottish branches of tho British Socialist Party have decided to oppose members at the next general election at the following constituencies: — Greenock, Montrose Burghs, North Aberdeen, Falkirk Burghs, Orkney and Shetland, and Kirkcaldy Burghs. The new Working Women’s College—Bebel House. Earl’s Court, whose resident principal is Mvs Bridges Adams, of the late London School Board—is to be a training school for Trade Union and Socialist women desirous of equipping themselves for the good of Labour and Labour’s children.