THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1908. THE CLAIMS OF LABOUR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9043, 19 March 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1908. THE CLAIMS OF LABOUR.

I Delegates from the Wairarapa and neighbouring local bodies assembled at Masterton yesterday to discuss the attitude to be taken in connection with the claims of the General Labourers' Union. The conference with but one dissentient voice, decided to urge the Government to abolish the Conciliation Board as being, in its opinion, inimical to the interests of trade in the dominion. Setting aside the question of whether the Conciliation Board has or has not come up to general expectations as irrelevant to the matter which the local bodies as employers of labour have been called upon to deal with, we may briefly refer to the claims of the workers. They are asking for a substantial increase in the present rates of pay as well as concessions in the hours of labour. There can be no that under present conditions the casual worker, whether it be for a local body or for an ordinary employer of labour, is inadequately paid. Eight or nine shillings per day has n very fine sound about it—"when you say it quick," ad the expression goes; but when the work is interrupted by bad weather and other circumstances, the sum which looks comparatively princely at a glance often becomes infinitesimal on the weekly pay-sheet. Say a labourer on the roads or in the fields gets paid at

the rate of 9s per day—the maximum pay given—and he loses a day, and a-half through inclement weather, his weekly wage tots up to £2 Os 6d. He may lose several days in a week, and then his earnings go down almost to zero. But in many instances the pay given to the labourer does not exceed eight shillings a day, and sometimes it is but seven shillings. A single day's loss of pay then becomes a matter of very serious moment, especially to men who have wives and families depending upon them. The general labourer more than any other section of the community is placed at a disadvantage in coping with the increased cost of living. He has been a negligible quantity in the minds of employers, but he has determined to assert himself, and the claims he is putting forward can hardly' be said to be excessive when the whole circumstances of the case are dispassionately considered. Every worker is entitled to a living wage, whatever the cost of living may be, and the pay of the general labourer at prssent provides him with little more than bare subsistence. He and his family have too frequently to go upon short commons, and it is not right that this should be so. We entirely sympathise with the movement now on foot to raise the general labourer out of the slough of despond into which he has for some time past been forced, and whatever municipalities and employers of labour may think about his demands for consideration, we are convinced those demands will appeal to the sense of justice of the community, and will be recognised by the tribunal which has shortly to : decide the matter.