The World of Labour August 10,1895.

*THE WORKER*

BRISBANE, AUGUST 10, 1895.

The World of Labour.

A National Anti-Sweating league has been inaugurated in Melbourne.

KILCUMMIN station started shearing on the 20th July with majority of union men.

DURING last year it cost the New York printers' union £6,200 to provide for its unemployed members. 

THE Victorian railway Department has found casual work for 2443 men since the beginning of the year.

THE first sod of the foundation of the Adelaide Trades Hall was turned on the 30th July. The work is to be done by day labour.

OWING to the big underground fires in one of the Broken Hill mines between 1200 and 1300 men have been thrown out of employment.
LANRHMIDOL started shearing on July 17th with a full board. Verbal agreement and 30s. per week for the shed hands. Regular A.W.U. terms. 

BREAD riots have occurred in Persia and the paid butchers were ordered to shoot the starving people down. It was bread or bullets – and they got the latter.

“OH help me, thou great Lord of shoddy and Adulteration, to do our work with the maximum of swiftness, profit, and mendacity for the Devil's sake.” - CARLYLE.
WILLIAM Lane, the founder of New Australia, in a letter to the London Daily Chronicle, says that after a year's hard struggle Cosmo Colony, in Paraguay, is succeeding.

NO member of a trade union is eligible to represent his society on the Trades Union Congress of Great Britain unless he is working at trade or is a paid official of his society.

THE master and journeymen butchers of Adelaide favouring early closing are conjointly urging the City Council not to allow the sale of meat at the markets on Saturday nights.

A NEW miners' union has been established in N.S.W. and is called “The Colliery Employe's Federation,” embracing all classes of labour, both above and below ground, employed in raising coal.

COLOURED labour is creeping South. According to a recent census taken there are in the Richmond and Tweed districts of N.S.W. 300 Kanakas, 200 Hindoos and Afghans, 50 Chinese, and 9 Syrians.

One hundred and eight thousand seven hundred and two tenements in Melbourne were supplied with water by the metropolitan Board of Works in the year 1893-94; 5000 were supplied in 1853. There has been a decrease of 348 houses since the year 1892-93.

THE pastoral Finance Association held its annual meeting in Sydney on July 30. The profits were £12,005. The farmer may go insolvent, but there is no danger of the men who live in town and deal in the products of the land foregoing their profits and dividends.

AN attempt has been made in Adelaide to reduce the rate of wages paid to the wharf labourers. On Saturday last the men refused to work at the steamers Age, Balimba, and several other vessels. The dispute originated over the rates paid for Saturday afternoon work.

THE dispute between several of the leading master bakers and the Journey men Bakers' Union in Adelaide still continues, and the city is flooded with circulars issued by the latter soliciting the public to assist the union in maintaining fair conditions for men to work under.

THE Union Flour Milling Company, of Horsham, Victoria, has suspended payment, with the result that about sixty mallee farmers have been “let in” for about two-thirds of the price of their wheat stored with the company. “Misfortunes” of this kind would be avoided by State or municipal flour mills.

THE Patriot's pen and ink description of the present Queensland Minister for Lands: “Barlow is a snuff-busting, psalm-singing, political Pharisee, with a bump of benevolence on him that every day swells to bursting point, and whose every thought is for sanctified, oily-looking crises like himself, and all residing within a few miles of Ipswich.”

THE net profits of the Australian Gaslight Company for last year were £54,794. This was obtained on a total expenditure for the half year of £109,870. Thus it will be seen that for every £2 spent they made £1 profit. The paid-up capital is £681,798, and the market value of the company to-day is nearly ten millions sterling. This is all made out of the people of Sydney.

MOST of the farmers in the Laidley district are getting crushed with the enormous interest charges they have to pay for loans. A considerable number of them are now merely tenants of money-lenders, interest having to be paid at rates varying from 12 to 30 per cent. The middleman and the usurer thrives and gets fat at the expense of the unfortunate farmer who has to work, work, work.

“THE law of off trading community is 'cheat to be cheated.' A system of keen competition, carried on as it is without moral restraint, is very much a system of commercial cannibalism. . . . . . There are but two course – either to adopt the practices of their competitors or to give up business . . . . It is impossible to carry on trade with strict rectitude. - HERBERT SPENCER.

A WOMAN in Melbourne, sued by the Crown for the support of her child who was in the industrial school, was asked by the bench what she earned. She stated 3s. per week but was willing to give the half of that for the support of her child. In this instance the bench was humane enough to free the woman from further liability. But where is Australia drifting to when such wages are being paid.

AN English visitor to Brisbane writes to the Courier about the post office thus: “What I wish to point out is the extraordinary action of the officials in opening my two letters, examining them, tying them up, and sealing the same during my absence. As an Englishman I ask is the law of this country so iniquitous as to give power to irresponsible officials to open one's letters at will?” What is he giving us? Why, the laws of England were iniquitous enough to do the same thing in Ireland.

AT the half-yearly meeting of the Q.N. Bank the other day the chairman said “there is ample time, therefore, to prepare a well-thought-out policy for the bank, a policy which, of necessity, must be approved of by the Government of this colony before it can be brought into operation.” It seems from this that there is going to be some more policy in which the Government is to be again called upon to play an influential part. But why for the Q.N. Bank more than others, or why at all?

IN anticipation of the Factories Act promised by the Government, a deputation from the Brisbane Operation bakers' Union waited on the Colonial Secretary and pointed out to him the long hours – in some cases ranging from seventy to ninety hours – the bakers are compelled to work in Brisbane, whereas in other colonies the eight-hour system was carried out with success, whilst at the same time a wage of £2 10s. per week was paid. The Colonial Secretary took a note of the facts placed before him and promised they would receive his consideration.