AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR Warning to Advertisers! Protect yourselves from being defrauded. Read the following Report of the Executive Council and action of the Convention of the American Federation of Labor, at Scranton, Pa., on December 14, 1901, in reference to DECEPTIVE PUBLICATIONS: A NUMBER of souvenir books have been published in which the name of the American Federation of Labor has been used without authority or sanction of any kind from either the American Federation of Labor or its officers. The good name of our movement is thereby impaired, the interests of our fellow-workers injured, and fair-minded business men imposed upon and deceived. During the year we have endeavored to impress upon all that the only publication in which advertisements are received is our official monthly magazine, the AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST; and we have also endeavored to influence a more straightforward course by those who have transgressed in the direction indicated. In this particular we have not been as successful as we should be pleased to be enabled to report to you. However, we are more concerned with the future than the past; and in order to be helpful in eliminating this cause of grievous complaint, we make the following recommendations: FIRST That we shall insist that no body of organized labor, nor shall any person issue a souvenir book claiming that such book or any other publication is issued for or on behalf of the American Federation of Labor. SECOND-That any city chosen by a convention of the American Federation of Labor to hold the convention following shall not directly or indirectly through its Central Labor Union or otherwise issue a souvenir book claiming that such book is issued for or on behalf of the American Federation of Labor. THIRD-That in the event of any such souvenir book being projected or about to be issued, directly or indirectly, by the Central Labor body in the city in which the convention was selected to be held, in violation of the letter and spirit of these recommendations, the Executive Council may change the city in which the convention is to be held to the one which received the next highest number of votes for that honor. FOURTH-That the Executive Council is hereby directed to prosecute any person or persons in the courts who shall in any way issue souvenir books, directories or other publications in which the name of the American Federation of Labor is used as publisher, owner or beneficiary. FIFTH-That it be again emphasized that the AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST is the official monthly magazine of the American Federation of Labor, and is the only publication in which advertisements are received. EXECUTIVE COUNCIL, A. F. OF L. Report of Committee to Convention on the Above Report. Perhaps there has been no more prolific source of dishonesty perpetrated in the name of organized labor than that involved in the publication of souvenir books. Unscrupulous projectors have victimized merchants and other friends of the movement in a most shameful fashion, and your committee heartily agrees with the strictures of the Executive Council upon the subject. We emphatically agree with the suggestions offered as a remedy and recommend their adoption. As an additional means to this end we would recommend that there be published in a conspicuous place in each issue of the AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST a notice to the effect that the American Federation of Labor is not sponsor nor interested in any souvenir publication of any kind. Adopted by the Convention of the American Federation of Labor, December 14, 1901. Federationist ERIOUS efforts to colonize Australia began with the independence of the English colonies in America. England had need of outside lands for her superfluous people. "Superfluous" covered many classes. During the British civil wars it meant political prisoners and those who might stir up political opposition. At other times it meant criminals and those confined in jails. Then the poor and the paupers were the "superfluous." Transportation was the early method of dealing with these problems. Transportation in turn supplied colonists and labor for new territorial possessions. English law of the eighteenth century provided numerous and lengthy jail sentences, consequently the jails were overcrowded. The beginnings of English Australia were an experiment with a convict settlement. The first boatloads landed in the swamps of Botany Bay. The convicts did not prove the best material for colonists. They knew little about farming and were determined to do as little work as possible. The early colonial policy of New South Wales, which then comprised the eastern half of the continent, was dominated by convictism. The colonists were divided into two classes-criminals and warders. The distance of Australia from England was at that time a practically insurmountable barrier to attracting desirable colonists. But the theorists, the speculators and the unfortunate were free to do what they would with the land. The warders, who were army officers, together with the New South Wales Corps, maintained autocratic rule in Australia. There were two divisions of the period when convictism was the dominating policy-during the first division governmental attention was concentrated on the convicts and discipline; during the second, upon ex-convicts (emancipists) and reformation. A rebellion forced the change to the second policy. During these years, when the transportation of convicts was a governmental policy, there was an accompanying practice called assignment. Convicts were assigned to work on privately owned land, owners of which undertook to maintain the men. Later it became the custom to assign men to any one who would agree to maintain them. Practically the whole laboring class were "assigned servants." The assignment practice was stimulated by the land grant system-one of the conditions of giving grants to free settlers in proportion to the number of assigned servants for whom they would become responsible. Sometimes the men to whom convicts were assigned were ex-convicts hardened by the convict system. As a result of gross brutality many assigned men fled to the bush and became outlaw bushrangers. The influence of this convict slavery upon the colonists, who were the employers, can be readily imagined. The population of New South Wales in 1832 is suggestive: 32,000 freemen, 17,000 ex-convicts, and 28,000 convicts under sentence. In 1840 the assignment system was replaced by assisted immigration. An Order-in-Council made Tasmania and Norfolk Island the only convict settlements in Australia. In 1852 the transportation of convicts was abolished except in West Australia. The constitution of 1842 established the foundations for self-government. Meanwhile discontent, necessity for finding fertile fields, the grazing industry, the discovery of gold and other motives and causes had led to considerable exploration and the founding of colonies along the coast. These afterward developed into what are known as the states of Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, West Australia, and Tasmania. The problems and conditions in all were practically identical. The land laws of New South Wales provided the following regulations: At first, blocks were allotted for small quit-rents; later, to free settlers in sizes proportional to capital expended on the land and the number of assigned servants; land could be bought for a small price. In 1831 a new policy was inaugurated as a result of Edward G. Wakefield's propaganda against cheap land. There were to be no more land grants, but land was to be sold at public auction. This Wakefield represents a class of colonists to whom Australia was a field for opportunity. He was a Whig philosopher whose theories were unhampered by practical experience. A pamphlet expounding his system of colonization was published in 1829. Wakefield thus analyzed the defects of New South Wales: It was no place for gentlemen, because the refinements of life did not exist there and because there was no leisure class. Wakefield's suggestions are thus described by an historian: ' "A leisured class must have servants to do the work, and of free servants (for convicts were to be shunned) there were none. A laborer might work for you during the first year or two after his arrival from England, but he would be sure to save money out of his wages and buy land with it-for land was much too easily got in New South Wales-and then the refined master would find himself without a servant and must spend his leisure in working for his own living. These conditions produced a new kind of society, and not a good kind. A really valuable colony would be one in which the state of society in England was faithfully reproduced. "How was this to be done? The letter had its remedy cut and dried. All the enumerated evils arose from the cheapness of the land-make land dear. Then the laborer could not afford to buy it and set up for himself; wherefore he would remain a laborer, happy and contented, earning his master's living as well as his own, and the master would have time to read and converse on intellectual matters with his equally leisured neighbors. Therefore, sell land at a high price, use the money thus obtained in bringing out emigrant laborers and take care only to bring just as many as would actually be wanted to cultivate the land sold. So everybody would be happy-the rich would hold all the land and the poor would never lack employment. The whole arrangement went like clock-work-in theory." Wakefield's proposals had influence in Australia in abolishing land grants and in establishing Anglo-Saxon standards and a tradition of idealism in governmental affairs. After several intercolonial conferences the Australian colonies agreed to an act establishing a federal government, and the Australian Commonwealth became a national state January 1, 1901. Edward G. Wakefield had not exhausted his energy in Australia. In 1837 he was instrumental in the founding of the New Zealand Company to colonize New Zealand. The company encountered trouble in making the natives understand the English system of land ownership. Its intricacies did not appeal to their primitive sense of justice and they demonstrated the justice of their fame as fighters. In the end the natives learned to tolerate the system. New Zealand is a much more fertile, attractive land than Australia, with a more invigorating climate. In this more congenial region Wakefield's theories developed more satisfactory results. Forces that Resulted in State Regulation of Industrial Relations In connection with convictism it must be remembered that prisoners of England were at that time political as well as criminal and that the law of England provided imprisonment as the penalty for the unfortunate as well as the vicious. These convicts transported to Australia represented all kinds of people. Among those transported were the laborers of Dorchester who united to raise wages and were sentenced to imprisonment under the conspiracy laws. All convicts were under the direct control of the government, which combined the functions of a warden, a labor employment bureau and an Italian padrone. The comparatively free settlers needed laborers; they looked to the government to supply that need and to maintain some sort of supervision over the workers. They were accustomed to regard the government as an employer if not an owner of laborers. The government with so many convicts at its disposal undertook extensive public improvements and public works and so established the traditions and customs of government employment and operation, and governmental regulation of relations of employers and employes. |