The Daily News. FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 1905. LABOUR DIFFICULTIES IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7711, 13 January 1905, Page 2

The Daily News. FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 1905. LABOUR DIFFICULTIES IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

The labour difficulty in the Newcastle mines in New South Wales is commonly regarded as tending to . prove' tile inefficiency of compulsory arbitration, but the conditions are so peculiar that this can hardly t H ' maintained as a! fair representation of the case. By the decision of the court under which thc mines have been working for somo time the wages scale was arranged so as to vary with tho selling price of coal. This worked fairly satisfactorily for some time, but a great decrease in tho foreign output of Australian coal having recently come about, thc Proprietors' Association gave notice of largo reductions in wages, to take effect from the Ist inst. The new rates involve a loss to the employees varying from six to twelve shillings per week, and are regarded by the men as bearing upon them much too heavily and unfairly. All application to the Arbitration Court for an injunction to prevent the operation of these rates until an appeal should lw heard was duly made, but tho. pourt is so overburdened with prior applications for hearings j that this appeal cannot in order of priority be reached for a year or more. As the interests of many thousands of persons are involved in connection with tlio coal mines and dependent industries, the court was petitioned to give priority to tho coal hewers' case, but refused to do so. The idea of appeal has therefore been forsaken by some of the employees, and in many of the leading, mines, notably in' the I'elaw mine, which is thc property of a wealthy private family, the wheelers [ ha\e gone out on strike. The same ■ has occurred in other mines, the pro- 1 prietors of. which are less favourably cii cumstanced for a trial of strength with the men, and from the most re- ' cent news it would .appear that in : the Helton colliery the owners have j conceded the demands of their em- 1 ployces. It is also announced that tho Attorney-Goneral has determined to enforce the law against the strik- ] era—an action- which if successful will < result in punishment by imprison- ' mcnt of those who have taken cou- ' certod action to bring about a strike. !

e.. action to bring about a strike. :t will bo seen from this brief statement, of the case .that the difficulty s largely due to the imperfect Workn 6 the court, which is hampered md overburdened with work. H a c -he machinery of the low been fre o get lo work on the miners' ap ;>eal at an early date there wouli probably -have been no diiliculty, am the working of the Arbitration Ac would nob .. have been discredited Logically, of course, the coal work ;rs should have patiently borne thi law's delays, but the immediate los; of such a large proportion of thei wages, and the natural impatieno of men who regard thcanselves a wronged have weighed mure heavili in the balance than prudence or re si>ect, for the law. Thus, unfortun ately, t livre have '.licexi given nev grounds for the argument that La bour will respect Arbitration onh as long as Arbitration maintains tin claims of Labour. It is often pre dieted regarding- out* own colon; that should- a day of industrial' dt pressiou come our labour laws wil speedily manifest their inadetjuacv Katlier should it be said that if sucl a time come it will truly test th principles of our labour unions. J is sincerely to be hoped that thos principles may prove sound and ur selfish enough to bear the test, br that they arc so can never be in reservedly asserted until they ha stood the strain of

practical proof. If, with a Ktacere respect for thy rights of both employee and employer, we may advise the member* of our labour unions, we would say : fcjclucate yourselves in the principles of political economy and the industrial history of the world, and see to it that your claims are voiced, and your policy carried out, by none but high-principled men or prudence, tact, and education, and'that

you glv-j your support to no pro. posal or action which •does not rest on tile foundation of immutable Do not regard the em- . ployer as the natural enemy of the employee or the employee as the t chosen instrument of Divine Providence for the regeneration of tlu world on strict labour lines—there may be other agents ami other lines under the same direction. One thing certain Is that as far as New Zealand is concerned truculcnce and tyranny on the side of capital are i obsolete weapons. L/ct, labour unions note 'this fact, and learn to refrain from any resort to the worn-out weapons of their late opponents. l!y P'l means let labour assert its rights and hold to them tenaciously: , but also let it ask for no iota beyond them, lest it justify thu predictions of those who see in union?* ism and labour legislation the harbinger of certain industrial confusion and ruin. This colony is ot present looked on by the world as the scene of strange and risky experiments. If labour is as just and wise as it is keen to assert its claims Xcw Zealand will in coming years serve as a model for labour legislation, and give practical refutation of the assertion that labour wili even be as greedy and sellish as capital often lias been, J

RAILWAY MOTOR CARS. Tlio railway motor car whilo yet far from perfect in mechanism lias quite pas|sed the experimental stage as a [practical success so that in announcing a trial ol' that system on one of our short busy sections, the Railway Department does not propose any r'iaky or expensive innovation. On whatever section the trial is maido- it is pretty safe to predict that if the service be made frequent, speedy, and cheap, it will meet the , .wants of tho pu'.j-ic anil certalinly prove a success. It is indeed pretty certain that within a few years' ! time the passenger and goods traffic on many o[f our lines will be almost dissociated. There i» an evergrowing, clesu'c for rapid transit, which can be met on our own lines only by the estabUshment of light special rolfing-stor,k for passenger traffic. The railway motor will probably enable these special services to bo installed without any alteration to the permanent way, and il is certain that when the public learn how fast they might travel in safety and comfort they will 110 longer remain humourously tolerant of tlr.' snail's paco and wayside delays of our present' mixed trains. When tho motor carriage is installed on the Auckland to Onebunga section, for example, it .will prob|ably lie possible to get over that eight miles at something fastor than the present rate of thirteen l (I ) miles an nour—a speed more than doubled by Stephenson's "Rocket" .in tho world's first triai of locomotives 1 . Assuming that tho exigencies of the Railway Department as at present equipped will not permit of competition either in rates or fares with the Auckland Tram Company, we may hope that the advent pf the railway motor will cloar tho way for higher speeds as well as for more frequent services than are possible with the present cumbrous rolUmg-stock of our uncommonly slow ! steam service.