INTERESTING ITEMS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 310, 2 October 1915, Page 3

INTERESTING ITEMS.

The Labour Department has received from the Hotel-workers’ Union a letter asking that official visits be made by inspectors of factories to ensure the observance of the country award, dated August Ist. It is stated that the conditions of the award have not yet been fully carried out.

Among applications received in the past by the Labour Department for workers’ dwellings have been those of single men about to to be married, and they have had equal consideration with married men. Under the present circumstances, however, it is considered undesirable that single men should be met in this respect, unless some gooc reason is shown which prevents them from serving their country.

A well-known Labour man associated with shipping remarked ti a Wellb ton Times representative:—“There seems to be great uneasiness among the employers with regard to a possible labour upheaval. This seems to have been increased by a paragraph in one 0 fthe papers hinting at such a possibility. Before the publication of that ‘news’ I heard that the bosses were agitated about some rumour or other. 1 have been ‘tapped’ about the matter, and another labour man wans also approached, but neither of us know anything.” Further inquiries were made, and it was ascertained that at the present juncture there is nothing on the horizon to cause perturbation. Beneath the skyline, however, there may be some feeling among the men with regard to the manning of vessels,” as one labour man put it in referring to the possible use of the clause in the Shipping and Seamen’s Act, which enables the Minister to over-rule the Act. THE BALKANS. AS BRITAIN SEES IT. In the House of Lords, Lord' St. Davids suggested a personal British mission with a view to a solution to the Balkans problem. Llord Crewe replied that It was immaterial to Britain whio occupied particular districts. She only desired that the boundaries be drawn on racial and national lines. If the Entente Foreign Ministers could have conferred the chances of a solution would be greater. He hoped the Balkans would take to heart Sir Edward Grejy’s grave words. While Bulgaria remained unagigressive the relations between England and Bulgaria would not be impaired.