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help us all the unions will be broken up. It seems useless to go again and again to the Court; and not get an award for any length of time. The case is scarcely over when you have to commence again, and there is continual friction. To me there seems to be no way out of the difficulty. We have done all we could. I myself do not think that the Auckland girls are satisfied. I think they are, in'a way, afraid of being marked girls always if they take any particular part in the matter, and thus when they know their employers are not favourable to their being in the union it means keeping them out of it. Ido not believe myself that the girls are satisfied. Miss Whitehorn: I should like to say that the union returns for 1899 for the three centres— Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin—showed considerably over a thousand members. The number of the Auckland Tailoresses' Union is only sixty-six. Miss Daly : I think it is hardly fair that this number should be the means of preventing fifteen hundred from getting an award for simply a living wage, which is all we ask for. 17. Mr. Arnold.'] Supposing the Court simply had the power to provide a minimum wage of so much per week, the work at the same time being done at so much per garment in the different towns on an even log; although it might be that an Auckland girl, for instance, would earn that wage through putting a greater number of articles through her hands, though the work perhaps was done in an inferior manner, while in the South you would do a lesser quantity of work but of a better quality. Do you think a system such as that would be possible ? Miss Daly : I do not think a weekly wage would be objected to were it on the same footing throughout the colony. 18. Mr. Arnold.'] A piece-work system, but the minimum wage to be fixed at so much per week? Miss Daly : It would really mean the maximum. Ido not think an employer, except in very exceptional cases, would pay more. Of course, we have girls earning as much as £1 10s. in the factories, but they are few—only one or two. We have one or two in Wellington earning £1 10s. a week. 19. Mr. Morrison.'] Weekly wage ? Miss Daly : Yes. Of course there is a great deal of difference in the wages the girls earn. For instance, coat-makers earn far more than trouser-makers. Trouser-rnakers' wages are particularly small. 20. Mr. Arnold.] In your factories, I suppose, girls could earn a different rate of wages on account of the system of work and the difference in trade appliances ? . : Miss Daly : Yes. In some factories girls can make more than in others. Miss Whitehorn: As far as the appliances are concerned, we are quite as up-to-date as they are in Auckland. The machinery in the three Southern towns is quite as up-to-date as it is in Auckland. 21. Mr. Arnold.] Supposing one manufacturer has an advantage—a slight advantage—over another in consequence of his appliances, do not you think it would be fair to say that one man shall be able to have a garment made for, say, Is. 3d., while the other should have to pay Is. 4d., assuming that a girl could earn as much in one factory as the other ? Would it not be fair to the employe ? Miss Daly : A girl receives less if a manufacturer has extra machinery. The payment for portions of garments which are done by machinery is deducted from the wage. 22. Mr. Tanner.] You do not ask for payment for work you do not perform ? Miss Daly : No, we do not. In that respect everything is taken off—-everything deducted. We do not get paid for anything we do not do. 23. Mr. Arnold.] Eegarding the manner in which the work is done: Supposing appliances have nothing to do with it, and it is simply a question of the employer not being so exacting—that though the work may be inferior he passes it—very well. If you have the same log for each town, the employes in the town where perhaps the work is done in an inferior manner will receive a very much higher wage at per week than those in the other towns, will they not?—lf they turned out a greater quantity, of course they would. 24. Do you not think the question is as to whether the employer should not have some share in the profit that is derived in consequence of the quantity of work that is being burned out ? Miss Whitehorn : I am quite in favour of a fair minimum wage being fixed which the girl could earn —a fair living wage. The piece-workers are suffering more and more every day. The weekly workers are looked after, but not so the piece-hands : they have to wait day after day. A weekly and piece-work system together would, I think, be satisfactory. 25. What have you to say with regard to one employer passing work which another one would not ? Miss Daly : There are certain things, of course, done to garments ; a girl has to go through a certain routine in making a garment, and one employer might pass it and another would perhaps give it back again. In this way a girl might be able to make a few shillings more per week through one employer passing work which another would not. That is the case, I may say, in any town. 26. The Chairman.] You cannot get over that?— No. 27. Mr. Arnold.] You are of opinion that the whole matter should be left to the Court? Miss Whitehorn: Yes, we think that would be the more satisfactory way. 28. Mr. Tanner.] Following up this line of examination : Would not a colonial award, providing for a uniform rate of wages throughout the colony, have the effect of bringing up poor qualities of work to the same level as the other? Would not the employers expect the.full value of the wages they gave ? —Yes, I think so. 29. With regard to your knowledge of the difference between the Auckland and the southern systems, is it a fact that Auckland possesses far better appliances, and that the South is a generation behind the times in clothing manufactures ?—No, certainly not. We have just as up-to-date appliances in the three centres as in Auckland. That was proved before the Arbitration Court.

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