UNION NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 458, 29 May 1909, Page 3

UNION NOTES.

[This column )s edited h.v the ITuxmills Employees* Union Executive, All niattors lor publication under this head must be lorwarded to the Secretary of the Union,!

A veiy successful meeting of the Tokomaru sub-branch was held on Monday last, when the Secretary introduced two members of the Executive. One ot the committee having briefly summarised and commented upon the happenings of the last few months, questions were answered regarding the general policy of the Union, and several valuable suggestions for a closer system of organisation were duly noted for amplification at a later date. THE FASCINATION OF FIGURES. The science of mathematics has had for many of us, its own peculiar charm. Iu the case of the writer there is added to its natural bewitchment the delightful ingredient of uncertainty ; which invests a sum in simple- addition with all the elements of chance embodied in the backing of a “rank outsider” for the National. Hence we do not attempt (being modestly sensible of our limitations) to state the answer to the following proposition, which we merely offer to our members in illustration of the possible position ot affairs were the Union not in existence. A SUM IN PROPORTION. We are informed by one of the men concerned that some time ago a miller offered to his employees at Tokomaru, the following rates for a 9 hours day during the winter months ; —Flyboys, 6s per day ; sorter, benchloader and washer 7s per day. Fibre at this time was quoted at £27 per ton. It may interest some of our members to solve the following : “If a man earns 6s per day of nine hours with fibre at £27 per ton, how much would he earn in eight hours with a market price of £20.” The answer to this sum gives you the exact value which that miller would set upon a man’s time today, upon which he might have to maintain a wife and family, and, most important of all from the miller s standpoint, obtain a sufficiency of nutriment to enable him to supply his employer with labor. We admit that wives and families are, for the average working man, luxuries, and the amount arrived at above would not allow a man to keep a wife and family. This miller is an able exponent of the doctrine of ‘‘mutual consent.” He has before now urged upon us the acceptance of that moth-eaten fallacy that “ half a loaf is better than no bread,” and the foregoing merely brings into further prominence his almost invariable attitude on the question of wages. We have every reason to be thankful that the dual intervention of the Union and the Arbitration Court stands between us and the cruelty of his tender mercies. A DICTIONARY DEFINITION,

Apropos of the above and of what appears below we turned up the meaning of the verb “to exist,” The dictionary summarised the position most aptly. “To be—to endure” was therein stated to be an alternative phrasing for the word in question. The following is taken from Thursday’s Dominion : A worker in a Christchurch boot factory gave an interesting comparision of his wages and living expenses in a table which he read before the Arbitration Court yesterday. The man’s wages are £2 12s 6d a week, and he has a wife and five children. His weekly expenses he computed at £2 17s 6d. A son, who is secretary of a union, assists him, and at the present time he is not in debt. The following are the details which he gave of his weekly outgoings £ s d Rent o 12 6 Coal, wood & lighting 056 Groceries (including butter and eggs) o 14 o Milk 4 023 Bread 029 Fruit and vegetables 030 Meat and fish 036 Dodge and union 016 Newspaper 006 Schoolbooks 006 Boots, clothing and. other household expenses o 12 o Total /2 17 6 The above earnings are at the rate of 8s gd per day, full time. We may fairly assume that the cost of living throughout the Manawatu is as high as in the city quoted. How many of us are making 8s gd per day all the year round. There is a certain amount of pathos in considering the above items of expenditure. Literature is represented by sixpence a week, art and music to which the worker is as fully entitled as his employer do not find any place in the programme. The children, thanks to a kindly dispensation of fate, can, with suitable soil and a sufficiency of wafer to manufacture mud, “make the pomp of Emperors’ ridiculous” but for the adults concerned the statement spells eating, sleeping, working, ad nauseam. The whole thing is expressed admirably by the curt phraseology of the dictionary—“to be, to endure.” INFORMATION WANTED. Can any of our older members give us particulars concerning the defunct Rangitikei Fibre Coy., who were milling some years ago outside Turakina. We want shareholders’ names, wages paid, and particulars of output, with references as to where information can be verified. The Secretary will be glad of any particulars.