WORK AND WAGES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 202, 23 February 1912, Page 4

WORK AND WAGES.

FLAX MILLS DISPUTE. ' £j MASS MEETINcToF EMPLOYEES, i IS A STRIKE ADVISABLE? .-j' ' By Telegraph—Preps Association. ' Palmerston N., Last Night. From seven to eight hundred flaxmill hands assembled at the Municipal Hall at 11.30 to-day to consider the dispute between the Flaxmillers' Association and. the Flax Workers' Union as to the conditions of employment of swamp handi, etc., and whether a strike was advisr able. The men had left the mills throughout the West Coast at the bidding of tho Flax Workers' Union to attend* the meet- * ing, the mills having to close down. ■ ) Mr. It. H. Dalhousie, president of the Flax Workers' Union, presided, and the morning was devoted to discussing the situation,, which had arisen owing to,therecent deadlock in the conference between the mill owners and the men'a • union. , ,' At two o'clock Mr. Hally, Conciliation Commissioner, who came up from .Wellington for the purpose, addressed meeting, which fully resolved to leave the matter to a meeting of -the executive committees of the men's and the employers' unions, presided oyer by Mr. Hally, to be held here at an early date; Tuesday next if possible. Before the meeting- closed 1 . at three o'clock, the present political situatio'fi was considered, and it was resolved-to ■ free J. Robertson, member for Otaki. ' who was nominated by the flax em-; ployees' unions, from his pledge to vote'i against Sir Joseph Ward, and to strongly : . urge him to vote for the Government on ' a no-confidence motion. The motion was by acclamation, with only two dissentients, both of whom, it was explained, had no votes in the Otaki electorate, while the others had. The meeting closed with cheers for "Robertson and radicalism." The meeting was not open to :the Press., The men returned to their vari* •is districts to-night, and will resume work at the various mills to-morrow, /