Our Home Letter

Maoriland Worker, Volume I, Issue 7, 20 March 1911, Page 11

Our Home Letter

LONDON, 'Joth Jan. 1911

A fatal accident on the railway is always a terrible affair., but there is something additionally pathetic in the collision which took place yesterday in South Wales, because several of the killed were representatives of the coal miners- on their way to London to attend a conference upon future conditions of labour in that iield. The strikes terminated before the end of the year j but some more satisfactory and permanent basis of peace is highly desirable, especially in the Ilhondda valley j where the struggle of last year began. This latest disaster reminds one of the other, just before Christmas, when the Scots express on the Midland line was wrecked and burnt. The coroner's jury brought in a verdict of "accidental death," which loyally clears the signalman; but it is pretty certain they would have found him guilty of culpable negligence if he had not voluntarily taken the blame on himself. lie frankly admitted that he had. no real excuse to offer, and denied that he was overworked, and he did not ask for any extra help. Many propositions and suggestions have been made for mechanical appliances to render such mistakes impossible ; but it is on the broad average, much safer to trust to the human agent, who is not more likely to go wrong than a machine, and can in many cases see and undo an error in time, which an unconscious mechanism cannot do. The Board of Trade Inspector was not in favour of a second man being placed in the signal box, nor of an additional signal box being installed at 11 awes Junction. The Printers' Strike. A great strike of printers is about to taiie place, of which you will probably hear by cablegram long before this letter reaches you. The men have been agitating for some time past for a 48-hour week, and negotiations have taken place oft and on for several months, between the men's Unions and the Master Printers and Allied Trades' Association. The employers have oifered a 52-hour week, and have suggested it would be better to try that iirst, without denying that it might become advisable in future to make the further reduction to 48. It was thought a little while ago that all the printing trade workers in the country might strike simultaneously, but it appears now that the movement is a London one, the conditions of living and working being altogether different here from those that prevail in provincial centres. Even Liverpool or Birmingham, great cities as tiiey are, are small places compared with London ; and it is probable that the majority of printers here spend two hours a day in getting to and from their work, while rent and food are considerably dearer. It is said that 20,000 men will cease work in London on ©atuciray, 4th Feb., and that firms employing 6 z ooo others have granted what the men demand. Some still think tne wisest course on the part of the provincial printers will be to continue working, so as to support the strikers, for if tiie latter \vin ; it will not be without a long and costly struggle, the expense of which tells far more against the men than against the employers. The printing and allied trades are eminently suitable, I should think, for working the eight-hour day ; with occasional overtime, for there must be 'fluctuations in the demand for that kind of labour. I am in fact surprised that the Unions do not aim at a weekly half - holiday, making forty-four hours t>o the week, although the organisation of this in daily newspaper offices would be somewhat difficult. One cannot help observing that great printing firms and great newspapers make enormous profits. Dividend Extraordinary. The last two words suggest to mc to enclose a cutting from which you will see that a gold company of West Africa is paying 100 per cent dividend twice a year! In this case it is chiefly the natives of Nigeria who are sweated, and of course they have no right to any wages beyond what will kt:ep them alive; but one Avould like to know what kind of taxation these mines bear. The British Empire is a very costly machine to run m Crown colonies, and if it enables speculators to make 100 per cent. a half-year safely, it ought to appropriate a good share of such exorbitant profits for the benefits of the State. Some adaptation of the "unearned increment" principle, successfully applied to land speculation by the 1909 budget, ought to be available in such cases as this. One of your N.Z. papers, which ought to know better, bewails the scarcity of millionaires in your country, and a London capitalist organ