LABOUR FESTIVAL. EIGHT-HOUR DAY IN SYDNEY.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 413, 23 October 1889, Page 6

LABOUR FESTIVAL. EIGHT-HOUR DAY IN SYDNEY.

On Monday, 7th insb., the city of Sydney was gay wibh brado society banners, crowds of citizens in holiday atbire, and alive with the music of brass bands. The occasion was the great annual festival of the various trades and branches of labour of the city, the " eight-hour day " procession being looked upon as the most important function connected with the eight-hour demonstration. The arranging committee spared neither time nor expense in making the celebration worthy of the cause of labour in New South Wales. The Trades Union, which has come down to us as the natural descendant of the ancient British Guilds, has found, perhaps, a more congenial home in Australia than in any other part of the world, and no one who witnessed the Sydney procession, wibh its band?, its banners, and its thousands of well-dressed and happy workmen, could doubt this assertion. The working men wore more fortunate this yoar in the weather for their great annual festival than they were a year ago. There was a blustering freshness in the air which played havoc with the heavy banners of the trade societies ; bub beyond this there was nothing to fear from the weather, which was cool and well adapted for out-of-door sports. The city was alive with music from an early hour, for the procession, which included no less than 22 trade societies, started from Cook Park at 10 a.m., and marched in procession headed by bands, through Macquarie, Bridge, and George- streets to the railway station, and thence by train to Rosehill, where the annual sports were held. The day was generally observed as a public holiday. From a spectacular point of view the procession of societies was a very effective one. The procession included : — Pressere, operative bakers, plasterers, coachmakers, federated seamen, Balmain labourets, gas stokers, Typographical Association, bricklayers, tinsmiths and sheet ironworkers, stonemasons, plumbers, galvanised ironworkers and gasfitters, engineers, amalgamated carpenters, boilermakers, farriers, ironmoulders, shipwrights, quarrymen, United labourers, United painters, Progressive carpenters. The day's sports at Rote Hill weie very successful.