LABOR NOTES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 148, 9 November 1912, Page 10

LABOR NOTES

(Conducted by the Dominion Executive Council). [We lire not responsible for the views expressed in this column.] YOU MAY ANSWER PLEASE. "Xo," .said the Sugar Trust. "Yes," said the Court of Appeal. "Thank you," said the Sugar Trust, "you know I thought I might be guilty." The Court of Appeal goes one step nearer making available for public use any information necessary to determine how much the people pay for what they are getting from private monopolies. The people ought to be willing to pay for all they get. But they ought to know just what they are getting. The books of the Sugar Trusts may help some. But then the books of the Merchants' Association may come along also. Maybe the Association will object to the membership of the court, same way as it did to the membership of the Cost of Living Commission, and refuse to testify. And then A BAD RECORD-A BETTER POSSIBILITY. Major-General Leonard Wood, chief of •tail' of the United States Army, recently promulgated an order throughout the military service requiring that any officer of enlisted men who "shall be absent from duty on account of disease resulting from his own intemperate use of drugs or alcoholic liquors or other misconduct, shall forfeit his pay for the period during which he is unable to perform his regular duties." This order is in accordance with legislation in the Army Appropriation Bill of this year. It is* in line with the efforts of the War Department and especially of the sur-geon-general, to reduce the amount of dissipation in the army. Social diseases will be regarded as due to misconduct upon the part of the officers and men.— The Leader.

These words carry.with them a most serious reflection on military camp life. There is no reason why the camp life of soldiers should be as sane and sanitary as the school life of university men. I3ut the school life of university men could be made better than it is. If military training and service were made a part of a system of industrial training anil service and the army officer given industrial duties and responsibilities after the same way as the army engineer and the marine hospital surgeon and given civil tasks, then rational employment, with rational rewards for service and really human conditions, could be provided for the defence forces of a nation. Some time it will be understood that uselessness in time of pease is no necessary qualification for efficiency in time of war. The National Organiser's trip to the South Tsland was most satisfactory. The Dunedin meeting was a great success. Almost the whole body of special workers remained after the public address for a special session, and things are under way for the formation of a provisional body which will push at once the preliminary work for the municipal elections. The same thing happened at both Tiiinim ami at Christchurch. At Christchurch an eiFort was made by an organised group to make impossible the public discussion of the United Labor Party, but the police was called, order enforced, the message given, and the most enthusiastic meeting of workers ever held in Christchurch was held at the close of the address. There can be very little doubt about it: Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington will be sure to be carried by the Labor Party in municipal elections. We have had council men in all of them, mayors in some of them, but the programme now is a mayor in each of them, with a good working majority in the town councils at their backs. While it is certain that this can be done, it is equally certain that it cannot be done unless those interested in seeing it done keep busy, stay busy, and are busy with things that count.

Mi - . Smith continues his very effective: organisation campaign in Wellington. It is greatly to be regretted that at an early date, on account of family affairs, he will be compelled to take a brief vacation, but Chapman is on his way home from Great Britain, Sullivan goes to work next week, and new men in the South are getting ready, with the result that within the "next month it is certain there will be not less than four assistant national organisers constantly pushing the work. In three months the number ought to be carried to a dozen. If that can be done in six mouths and these men kept busy, with proper support we will not only carry the principal seats in the municipal elections, but we will build the machine that will elect the next Parliament. En route the other day up from Dunedin, a couple, of farmers on the train, learning that the National Organiser was aboard, looked him up, asked for a chat, and the chat was a hundred miles long. But the farmers went away loaded with literature, declaring that the land policy of the United Labor Party would be the best of all policies possible to apply in New Zealand. That was their present impression, but they were enthusiastic for its further study, and they took the tools to do it with. McManns is taking a rest, and this is the way he is resting: He is earning his living working at his trade as a general laborer. But he has already in hand one new union of more than 200 members, and another on its way. The Dominion Executive will vote a vacation to any working man in New Zealand who will earn his expenses and create a new union even with half the number of members that this new Dunedin body is sure to have, and which McManus is helping to create. The call keeps coming for a United Labor Party representative on the West Coast. The Furniture Workers are sending an organiser. Dan Sullivan, to the West Coast, and he goes with authority to speak for and to act for the United Labor Party. Those wishing to communicate with him or to co-operate with Mm while on the Coast can reach him at the Trades Hall, Christchurch. Mr. Veitch is in with a call for a new trades union in Wanganui. So mote it be. Syd. Smith reports things moving in New Plymouth. Mcllugh had splendid meetings throughout the North Island. He has done splendid work in Wellington. lie will be sailing on the Bth, and will carry personal messages to friends in America from the writer of these notes.