CHRISTCHURCH COMMENTS.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 31, 6 October 1911, Page 7

CHRISTCHURCH COMMENTS.

Leaders and Misleaders. —The Unity Dodge.—Tramway Employees.. Christchurch unionists, are gradually awakening to the fact that to 'have , leaders is to have misleaders, and in spite of the Mills unity scheme tho rank and file are not content with things as they are, and requests are coining in from unions who in the past have been looked upon as being conservative for speakers from the N.Z. F.L. to bo sent along to address them on the aims and objects of that body. The cause of this is that the statements that have been made by the "arbitration leaders" have been so extravagant that it has made the happy-go-lucky members sit up and do a bit of thinking of their own; and to get their thoughts together they had to make some enquiries. So they went to ■the man in the street, who had been listening to tlie soap-box orators, and they found that they were out-of-date, and the the only people that were in the Federation of Labor Avere the useful people, the people that Aye re doing things," the people that were busy. From time to time paragraphs appear in the "Black-leg" column of the Saturday, issue of the different daily papers concerning the Mills unity scheme Avhich arc truly "Yankeeisms." For instance, in the northern paper Aye read, that this scheme has caught on in the south and that Christchurch. is simply booming it. Noav, as a fact, there is" not a union that has accepted it, nothing is being done by anyone toAvards it, 'and one union, the largest in Canterbury, Avhen asked by the Trades Council Executive to listen to j Mills, passed a resolution to do so at | the next meeting; after the business! had been finished, Avhich means halfpast 10 at night. In the Christchurch I scab column avo read: Prof. Mills is arousing great enthusiasm in the North Island, and naturally Aye -who knoAv lioav the north is being gulled by the reports from the south, take the northern reports with a very big grain of salt. We have a Tramway Employees Union in the Holy City of.about 250 strong. There are some fine fellows amongst this .-number, but unfortunately these men had not been used to steady jobs before they got on the trams, consequently Avhen they obtained "permanent jobs," they went in for homes for themselves on the usual terms—£2o down and 15s per Aveek, and if their hearts are not broken before then or the borers have not eaten the house, in 20 years they will OAvn their oavu homes. Now the management knows perfectly Avell the financial position of their employees, and consequently they are continuously putting the screAV on. Noav these same employees do not fear the board, the manager, or even the inspectors —the board, manager and inspectors knoAv this also —but on the board's books are the names of 200 applicants for jobs on the trams, and thp men fear these 200 more than they do the d ——1 himself, and consequently the employees put up Avith conditions that Avould stagger the workers of this Dominion and bring about a revolution if it Avas done by private employers of labor. And yet Aye own (?) tlie cars!—THE vag: