World of Labour June 8, 1895.

*THE WORKER*

BRISBANE, JUNE 8, 1895.

The World of Labour.

THE Queensland Protectionists, to be consistent, ought to protect the wages of the bootmakers on strike from reduction.

IT is said that women in Brisbane are making men's trousers for the low sum of 7d. each for cloth and 4d. each for moleskins.

INFORMATION regarding the sweating carried on in the different clothing trades in Brisbane was laid before the A.W.U. at the Trades Hall on Wednesday evening last.

MRS. Grace Neill has been gazetted a Deputy Inspector of New Zealand hospitals and lunatic asylums. This is well within women's sphere of usefulness.

THE Boston and Albany (U.S.) railroad company recently issued instructions for the conductors and brakemen in its employ to shave daily under penalty of dismissal.

THE N.S.W. Premier has instructed the Government Printer to make arrangements for the unemployed compositors to obtain a share of Government work as it becomes available.

WITH a view of absorbing the unemployed the New Zealand Government intends to find productive work for 600 additional men by reducing the number of days on the co-operative works to five per week.

THERE has been a railway navvies strike at Newcastle, N.S.W. The men asked for a decent wage, which the contractor refused, and the consequence was that every man jack of the navvies elevated “Matilda” and took the road.

THIS is a feather in the cap of the A.L.F. Since its establishment in N.S.W. The soreness that existed between the labour Electoral Leagues and other political sections of Labour, has been removed through its judicious and timely intervention.

AT Whangeri, N.Z., Donald Dinnie has been fined £5, in default fourteen day's imprisonment, for employing his 10 year old daughter in a variety troupe. It is time the authorities in Queensland got on the track of the fathers of some of the child wonders who appear on the Brisbane stage.

THE Hon. Clara Creasington, one of the three women elected to the Colorado Legislature, has introduced a bill into the Lower House of that body to create a State Board of Arbitration and Mediation for the purpose of setting industrial disputes between employer and employe'. More power to her elbow.

ALDERMAN J. A. Clark, of the Brisbane Municipal Council, has given a notice of motion which favours the Council requesting the Government to introduce a bill dealing with the supervision of factories and workshops. Legislation of this character is much wanted for the suppression of sweating and other evils.

WORKERS, paste this in your hats so that you will remember it: “ Machinery considered alone is a victory of man over the forces of Nature, but in the hands of Capital it makes man the slave of those forces; in itself machinery increases the wealth of producers, but in the hands of Capital makes them paupers.” - KARL MARX.

MERCHANTS, storekeepers, and other business people generally, in Denver, Colorado, who are large advertisers, have waded in to boycott two local newspapers that are printed by linotypes. The reasons set forth for the boycott is that business cannot be done with the machines, as they neither eat nor drink nor wear clothes.

JAMES FENNELL, one time secretary of the Operative Boot Trade Union, Brisbane, is now a well-to-do manufacturer and one of the bitterest opponents of his late shopmates in the existing struggle for fair conditions, is reported to have said, “Wait until the men's bellies are pinched, then they'll submit to us.”

HOWEVER people may differ in opinion from Jos. Symes, the editor of the Melbourne Liberator, everyone who is not jaundiced with religious bigotry will give him credit for his honesty of effort in the direction of reform Poor Joe has just got fourteen days in gaol for publishing remarks said to reflect on the Chief Justice and grand jury of Victoria.

RANSON, the Secretary of the Federated Employers' Union and Pastoralists' Union of Queensland, is acting as secretary for the Brisbane boot manufacturers during the present bootmakers' strike. The reason that the boot manufacturers refused a conference is now painfully evident. The pastoralists and other employers are pulling the strings.

THERE are no less than five “jokers” representing the manufacturers' interest in the present dispute, not one of whom is a practical bootmaker. One of these jokers professes extreme radicalism; he is but a wage-slave himself and he knows it, yet he is doing the dirty work of Capitalism and helping to starve the wives and families of his fellow workmen.

AT the last meeting of the master bakers of Brisbane the following resolution was carried; “That owing to the assistance given by the journeymen in maintaining the price, and the generous support of the public in the same direction, it would not be necessary to yet consider the matter of reducing wages.” But where does the shortening of the long hours worked by the journeymen come in?

LABOUR Member Archibald, of South Australia, who was a member of the Northern Territory Commission that recently visited Queensland to inquire into the coloured labour question, has expressed the opinion that the existence of so many coloured aliens in Queensland affects the desired object of the promoters of such labour in that it keeps the white wage earner under the whip of the Fat Man.

IN consequence of the remarks of Police magistrate Pinnock towards the plaintiff sailors in the notorious Drumpark cases, as reported in the evening press, the Australian Workers' Union in Brisbane has requested the Parliamentary Labour Party to bring the matter before the Legislative Assembly when Parliament opens with a view to further investigation. The A.W.U. has also decided to approach the Minister for works regarding the conditions of labour on Government works.

A MAN named Newport, said by the Telegraph to be known as the “Fire King,” was brought before the court at Hughenden charged with carrying ammunition in a district proclaimed under the Coercion Act and was sentenced to three month's imprisonment. The charge of being a person of evil fame was also trumped up against him, and he was ordered at the expiration of the three months to pay two sureties of £30 each and himself in £60, failing this to do another six months in prison.

OUR Philosopher says: Some fellows are always reaching out after the “long arm of coincidence,” and when they think they've got a grasp of its cast-sleeve, write our Philosopher. The N.Z. Minister of labour has legislated for the benefit of the shop assistants, which gives them a weekly half-holiday. The searcher after the l.a.o.c. at last tells us; “It appears that a law was enacted by King Canute, and has never been repealed, to this effect: 'Let every Sunday's feast be held from Saturday's noon to Monday's dawn' and this law was only a confirmation of one promulgated by King Edger the Dane, A.D. 958, commanding the relinquishment of all labour at mid-day on Saturday, and its resumption on Monday at daylight.” This fellow can't be a shop assistant.