KNIGHTS OF LABOUR.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 382, 6 July 1889, Page 5

KNIGHTS OF LABOUR.

Auckland, July 4. A full meeting of the Committee of the Knights of Labour was held last evening, when the rules were finally adopted and ordered to be printed. It was also ordered that a thousand copies of the objects desired by the Association should be printed for free circulation, as it was pointed out by several members that a wrong impression had gone abroad as to the true meaning of the organisation, and that if the objects desired to be attained were freely circulated, this wrong impression would be removed, and that many now holding back would gladly join an association which was evidently formed to secure the good of all, and not of a class. The following is a copy of the specific objects, the attainment of which is the ration d'etre ot the Auckland Knights of Labour : — 1. To bring within the folds of organisation every department of productive industry, making knowledge a standpoint for action, industrial, and moral worth — not wealth — the true standard of individual and national greatness. 2. To secure to the toilers a proper share ot the wealth which they create ; more of the leisure that rightfully belongs to them ; more society advantages ; more of the benefit*, privilijres, and emoluments of the « orld — in a word, all those rights and privileges necessary to make them capable of enjoying, appreciating, and defending fche blessings? of good government. 3. To arrive at the true condition of the producing masses in their educational, moral, and financial conditions, by demanding from the Government the establishment of bureaus of labour statistics. 4. The encouragement of co operative institutions, productive and distributive. 5. The reserving of public lands — the heritage of the people— for the actual settler ; not another acre for railroads and speculator. 6. The enactment of laws giving mechanics and labourers a first lien on their work for full wages. 7. To secure popular elections to all public bodies in lieu of any nominated system. 8. To abolish plural voting in Parliamentary elections. 9. The substitution of arbitration for strikes whenever and wherever the employers and employees are willing to meet on equitable grounds. 10. The prohibition of the employment of children in workshops, mines and factories before attaining their fourteenth year. 11. To uphold the principle of payment to members ot the House of Representatives and Triennial Parliaments. 12. To secuie for both sexes equal electoral privileges and equal pay for equal work. 13. To make eight hours a legal day's work. 14. To prevail upon Government to establish a purely national circulating medium, issued directly to the people, without the intervention of any system of banking corporations, which shall be a legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private, 15. To secure just legislation for the wage-earning classes by the election of such members to the House of Bepresentatives as will truly advocate their views and secure their rights. 16. To abolish all assisted State immigration, leaving the labour market to find its own level ; and that all Chinese and Coolie labourers be prohibited fioui landing and settling in New Zealand except under a sufficient poll-tax. 17. To secure, through the Legislature, that the incidence of taxation be so adjusted, as to equalise the burden of taxation, according to the power of bearing it, by imposing a land and, if necessary, an income tax. IS. To promote, by harmonious intercourse, readings, recitations, and lectures, a proper esprit de corpv among the members, and securing by such and kindred means the political education of the people. 19. To create, by donations, gifts, or otherwise, a fund for the purpose of building halls and establishing: libraries for ths use ot members, as a means of helping them on in their moral and material welfare. 20. To advocate the settlement of all international disputes by arbitration, so as to save the miseries arising from warfare. 21. The general and. specific objects of the .Society shall not be altered except at the annual meeting ; at least seven days' previous notice of any proposed alteration shall be given. Ie was subsequently arranged that fche Committee should' meet reguiarly on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at the Lome-street Hall, and that the next public meeting should be held at the Temperance Hall, Albert-street, on Tuesday, July 9th, when the main objects desired to be' attained b^ the Society should be brought prominently before the meeting, and matters of immediate local importance should also be discussed. ,