The Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1907 FOREIGN LABOUR MOVEMENTS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8371, 2 March 1907, Page 4

The Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1907 FOREIGN LABOUR MOVEMENTS.

The Labour Party in 'the United States has inaugurated a new departure, following "the example of the Labour Party in Britain. In the United States the new movement is led by the American Federation of Labour, the greatest labour federation ever created in that country. The policy has been endorsed by the largest convention ever held —at Minessota. The creation of a Labour Party is now an accomplished fact. It stands apart from tne Republicans and Democrats, though there may be representatives of both in the newgroup. To their Bill of Rights, called by them a "Manifesto of Grievances," they have now de{jnitely added the abolition of all child labour under 14 years of age. This subject has been taken up by the American women, and a highclass weekly paper is devoted to it. The manufacturers complain of a scarcity of labour, and seek to fix the age at 12 years instead of 14. The labour movement has spread to Canada, but not to the same extent or with the same enthusiasm. The idea is to carry the industrial war throughout the great American continent from Canada to San Francisco, and also through the Central American States. In the Australian Commonwealth and in New Zealand labour has long been striving to become the dominant factor in public life. Now they form a third party in the Commonwealth, but with diverse elements which may at any time split over, say, the fiscal question —Protection versus Free Trade — and also probably over the question of State employment and protective labour. Russia has long been

seething with discontent and revolt. The labour question has been merged into the political, but the situation has not improved. Workless discontents, enraged by hunger, have joined the revolutionary bands, the result being assassinations and attempted assassinations, sham trials, and Siberia. In Germany, the Socialists are engaged in a struggle with the Crown and Court, brought about by a side issue; but the fight will be on the question of the condition of the working people. In Spain and Italy the proletariat have been fighting for better conditions, but the struggle has been less sanguinary than in Russia. In France, Belgium, and Austria-Hungary tho struggles have be<-!D less acute, but everywhere the struggle of labour is In the midst of all there has bean, and is, commercial prosperity; but the workers think that their share is small in its proportion to thj wnvl .