SHEARERS AND LABOURERS UNION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2323, 25 February 1892, Page 3

SHEARERS AND LABOURERS UNION.

In the eating room at Mr Tripp's Station, Orari Gorge, on Monday evening, Mr J. R. McDonald addressed a comparatively large number of shearers and labourers. He said there was an idea in the minds of most people at the present time that we were living in an age when there was what was commonly known as a " survival of the fittest." This was a mistaken idea, for it was not always the fittest but the strongest —those men with the most money—who survived. Speaking of the labour market of pre-union times he said, there had been a system among squatters in Australia of giving men sufficient rations to carry them from station to station. This was done in order that there might be sufficient labour travelling about to enable them to fill in vacancies at their own prices. Of course this was not the only system responsible for the lowering of wages. Competition existing amongst the shearer and labourer was taken advantage of by pastoralists, and in one colony in Australia prices had gone down to eight shillings per hundred, and in north colonies it was showing signs of decline. There had also been u case where 8,000 sheep had been turned out without counting them to the shearers. The accommodation for the men he considered in some cases was not fit for pigs, and in many cases men were living in quarters where dogs were better attended to. The first policy of the unions was a defensive, and not an aggressive one as the Press had attempted to show. The good that Unionism had done was seen in the fact that prices had been raised and kept up. Since the inception of the union in Australia he reckoned that no less than one million pounds had been circulated amongst shearers which under the old system of things would have gone into the pockets of squatters. Altogether it had cost shearers about £4 per man to get this large amount extra from squatters and he considered it a very fair return for the outlay. To this million pounds the large amount of money spent among the working classes by the Pastoralists, which they would not otherwise have spent, could be added. The Pastoralists had expended a considerable sum, and it had been all brought about by the Shearers Union. With regard to the two bodies at present he said the union had been partly beaten, but the settlement arrived at between the two bodies had actually placed the Shearers Union in a better position than ever they had been before. The freedom of contract had now been admitted by the Australian Shearers Union, and they had found that it was better to work side-by-side with non-uuion men, as by that means they could have an opportunity of inducing them to become members of the union. The conference he assured, them, was considering the advisabii . 3 of bringing the accident fund more prominently before members. This was a very necessary thing. The original prospects of the fund allowed married men 30s per week, and single men £1 per week, who met with accidents while shearing or going to and from shearing. This fund would have been very helpful to men during the past season, when influenza was rife. The conference was also considering the advisability of political organisation and the establishment of State Banks. They were also talking of commencing a newspaper, or buying one for the purpose of advocating their cause. In political organisation Australia was following very closely in the heels of New Zealand but their great drawback was their electoral laws, and when they got the one-man-one-vote system in Australia they would fight for a land tax, as New Zealand had done, which gives poor men a chance to take up small holdings. Mr MacDonald then spoke of the operation of the Australian Shearers Union in New Zealand, and pointed out the advantages to be obtained by becoming a member of that body. He stated I that his success in New Zealand so far had been very good, and a large number of new members had joined. The A.S.U. was simply doing its best to organise New Zealand, and it did not care whether they affiliated or became a separate body so long as they were organised. Pie urged the members present to do as much organisi» , ~" as they possibly could, {ind. '7 lStea( j "*n crying " Scab" an* "Blackleg" and all that SOrt of thing, to approach nonmembers and induce thera to join. He would ftfce to aee a little sympathy towards farmers. The ■• Qo,cl>ey " was no t i n the same position as squatters and large employers, andwasnot altogether a moneyed man! He was well aware that his hours were

about 1(5. and his wages correspond ingly low, but he hoped they would consider his position and not be too hard on him, and instead of having him on the side of large employers he would be on the side of labor and be of great assistance to them. Mr Hammond, President of the Geraldine branch of the Shearers Union, spoke of the benefits they now enjoyed by uniting themselves into a body to fight for their rights, and the suppression of wrong, and at the conclusion moved a Ifearty vote of thanks to Mr McDonald. Questions were then put to Mr MacDonald and answered satisfactorily by i him, and the meeting then terminated.