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or property is embedded in Australian law and is generally acquiesced in by the Australian laborers.

When an employer fails to pay the wages fixed by an award or industrial agreement the employe may apply to the registrar or an industrial magistrate for an order for payment, or may enter suit in any district court. Breach of award or industrial agreement may be punished by a fine not in excess of fifty pounds. In case of wilful act to defraud an injunction may be granted to prevent further breaches.

Since organization is a part of the machinery of industrial regulation employers may not dismiss employes because of membership or activity in a trade union. Any employer who dismisses employes for such cause may be fined not more than twenty pounds for each worker dismissed. The burden of proof rests upon the employes to show that the dismissal was not for some other cause. However no prosecution for an offense of this nature shall be commenced except by leave of the court.

Results of Industrial Arbitration

Now as to the way this system of state regulation of industrial relations works out. That is best demonstrated by Australian comments. We will relate incidents published in Australian papers.

The Daily Telegraph made the statement that there had been an unusual number of strikes and lockouts in Australia during the past year, which was almost exactly in proportion to the strength of unionism in the various states, and concluded that unionism means strikes.

The Australian Worker, the official organ of the Australian Workers' Union, published in Sydney, made the following reply, which shows that the workers' idea of what constitutes the real protection of the workers does not differ fundamentally from that of trade unionists of the United States: ➡➡ "Unionism does not necessarily mean strikes, but it does mean the bettering of wages and conditions of labor, because through unionism labor has the power to strike."

When the European war began, Judge Heydon refused to consider further applications for increases in wages and declared that the Australian workers must share the misfortunes of war with the other patriots. This important decision marked the collapse of the system regulating wages, perhaps temporarily but yet effectually. Judge Heydon found it necessary to modify his decision to apply only to government employes. This is the comment of the Australian Worker of January 14:

"The vetoing, ostensibly on account of the war, of any further applications by unions for increases in wages may say a good deal for the personal opinions of Mr. Justice Heyden, President of the N. S. W.'Arbitration Court, but it doesn't say much for his logic.

"On every hand the prices of commodities are going up. Meat is 50 per cent dearer than it was a few months ago; bread is dearer, and house rents have not decreased, despite the fact that they were forced up in times of unparalleled prosperity.

"In fact, it is safe to say that living is at least 20 per cent more expensive in New South Wales than just before the outbreak of War.

"Now note the illogicalness of the position.

"If the Big Business man desires-and he seems to be always desiring- to increase the rice of his goods he can, and aoes, approach the Necessary Commodities Commission.

That Commission doesn't tell him that, for the sake of the Empire, all such applications are 'off,' and that the prices obtaining before the war and the imposition of the new tariff duties must continue to prevail.

“Instead it invites him to step inside, considers his application, hears all the evidenceindeed, goes to a lot of trouble to get evidence—and then gives a decision, usually in favor of an increase.

"Why should this illogical distinction be made between the man who has goods to sell and the man who has his labor to sell especially as it is the latter's labor which produces the former's goods?

"If things are to be left as they were in the one case, why not in the other? What is the operating difference?

"Has Labor organized, fought, suffered, and sacrificed to win elections and put its party in power only to give the exploiter all the advantages while it is brusquely requested to stay out on the doorstep?

"One of these days when Mr. Justice Heydon isn't too busy dilating on the political economy which he knows so little about he might answer these questions.

"In the meantime Organized Labor would do well to answer them itself."

The conclusions of these workers who have tried the system of state regulation of hours and wages which many theorists have been trying to fasten upon American workers is most noteworthy. "Organized labor would do well to answer this question itself." Whatever benefits organized labor establishes through its economic power and retains control in its own hands are the things alone upon which it can depend.

Jurisdiction of Industrial Court

It will be remembered that the authority of the Court of Industrial Arbitration permits it to determine any industrial matter.

That authority was made to include control even over the labor press, as will be seen in the case of the cancellation of the registration of the New South Wales Amalgamated Railway and Tramway Service Association. This organization endeavored to enroll all unionists of every branch of the railroad industry into one union. When the 1912 act became operative the Railroad and Tramway Traffic Association, which was organized on the principle that each group or section of workers could be best protected by separate organizations, tried to secure its representatives upon the wages board, although it was not registered. The Traffic Association charged that the Amalgamated Association had delayed the work of a previous board and had deliberately impeded the last board because of hostility to its chairman. To substantiate the last charge the following was quoted from the official journal of the Amalgamated Association, The Co-operator:

"Just here let me say, in parenthesis, that the meeting of the Railway Traffic Board has not been pushed on. The executives of the Association have been waiting for the new arbitration act to come into force in the hope that the millstone of Hamiltonism might be got rid of, and a big effort in this direction will be made."

Incensed by this plain statement, which the judge deemed contempt of court, the registration was cancelled. This gave the Traffic Association the opportunity to secure registration and to get its members on the board. The Royal Commission, authorized to report on this and other matters to be specially considered with reference to the legislation of 1912, which was

under consideration, makes the following comment, which applies equally to all other workers who have not the right of registration:

"But although the same class of workers was represented on the new board, and although the Amalgamated Association could have submitted claims and have had their witnesses examined, though not by their own counsel, it was no doubt a serious loss to the Amalgamated Association, which so far as the Traffic Wages Staff is concerned far outnumbers its rival the respective figures being 15,000 and 1,200. If a suitor has a claim to an estate and is entitled to bring that claim before a court in his own way and by counsel who instructs, it is no consolation to him to be told that his interests are being safeguarded by a distant and not too friendly cousin who is making a claim of a similar nature and on similar grounds to his own, which if granted will enure to his benefit."

That commission then makes this significant statement as to the power of the court:

"With regard to the power of cancellation, I suggest that this should be limited to specified cases, and no longer left to give rise to such surprises as that which the union has experienced in the present case. The power of initiation which the court possesses should, as I have already suggested, be left as it is; but it is a provision foreign to ordinary judicial systems which casts upon a court so grave a responsibility, and arms it with so crushing a power, as that of expelling competent suitors forever from all rights of audience or remedy, and this for reasons undefined by Parliament and therefore, until a specific incident arises, undefinable by the court."

The New South Wales system of regulating industrial relations with all its authority and power makes provisions for all industrial problems except industrial freedom. The judicial despotism which rules over industry maintains many of the principles and practices which the workers of the United States of America have persistently denounced and opposed. Instead of being a workers' paradise, New South Wales is rather a paradise for lawyers.

There is nothing in the system of governmental regulation of industry as developed in New South Wales that is in conformity with the spirit or the genius of the people of the United States.

TO A PEACE ADVOCATE

Your work will not be vain; for out of war

Will come the proofs, the ghastly, hideous proofs,
Gathered from fortress, trench and corpse-strewn field,
Witnessed by myriad wounds and broken hearts.
Inscribed, in time, on sorrowing shafts and tombs,

And writ at last on history's calm page

Proofs of the truth you've made the whole world hear,
Proofs of the truth the whole world yet will heed.

When the red strife is but a memory,
On new foundation will the nations build,
And they will take for its chief corner-stone
This stone rejected by the purblind kings.

-John Finley

STRIKE OF PORTO RICAN AGRICULTURAL

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sand settlement where the entity and personality ken of the organized labor movement are recog nized, and due to our efforts as trade unionits, some agreements were reached after very hard work and discussion. But these greements secured where I have appeared

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The recommendavers of the Americm Vederation f tuladelpo. Pa.. in regard crap of Die & ̋ed and un

when workingmen vedom is repeated e bosses realized g to break their 4 movement the I the chance to tion, repressive and are actually a and it is my ing in different trike, to effect a

a labor representative with the repreentatives of the capitalists and the Chie the Bureau of Labor, have been broken

the capitalists and owners of the plantathus with the consent of the government represented by the Bureau of Labor as wn by a telegram of the Chief of that BuThe capitalists and owners of the canc attons and mills with this policy are ang rum of the peasants and taking ke this serious conflict, creating rester and bitter feelings.

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The labor men are prosecuted, jailed, val 201 and lled in the streets and countv the ntention of stopping the adterment of the labor movement and c

ng the bud the aspiration for freedom this peasant folk who produce the wealth the sand.

Tegums com the different sections of the Sunt o strke give information of the crutates and assaults of the police force theken The most serious casualties Sure taken punce in Vieques.

Vegies 8 & smail island situated in the eatern part corto Rico, which belongs to the Tarted States and to Porto Rico, and which is mer the government and control of this same country.. On this island of Vieques memes long and two miles wide there are established four sugar mills of different corperations. When the inhabitants of Vieques realized the price of sugar and compared their actual situation with that of other towns of Porto Rico they thought they were entitled to better their conditions, and went on strike. Straight

This is the same Chief who last year when the cigarmaker:

were engaged in their great strike, urged them to return t work upon the employers' conditions; they held out and wes a great victory.-S. G.

ay the plots and combinations of the pitalists and some officials of the govmment reached them also, and on Februy 16, while coming from the country to the ty in a great parade to hold a meeting the town, they were assaulted by the olice and foremen of the sugar-cane plantaons, and some of them hunted as beasts. he parade was violently dissolved by the ans of the policemen and foremen. Four the agricultural workers were left on the round dead, more than ten wounded, and 1 order to justify the violence, more than ne hundred men were jailed. At present here are in jail more than fifty, against hom charges have been preferred. The 2st information received from Vieques that the police force has compelled the inancial secretary to close down the doors headquarters of the local unions affiliated the A. F. of L.

According to the old policy of tyranny the government has absolutely adhered to the bosses and the privileged, the police force has een put at their disposal to force the agriultural workers to return to work, or to compei them to leave the houses where they are living, if they will not go to work under the old conditions. When the workErs protest against those actions they are brutally wounded, jailed and killed.

The bosses have also been granted the privilege of having a private corps of guards armed to the teeth to work as strike-breakers end hunters of strikers. All the public police force, under the pretense of keeping Order and guaranteeing the properties, is n the service of the private corporations, andlords and capitalists, to break the strike, to force men to work, while they enjoy their banquets and drinks. In almost all the towns where the workingmen are strikng, the local headquarters of the police Force are installed within the sugar mills or nder their premises, the men of the force are fed by the plantations' owners, and the horses used by the police to ride on horseback to hunt the strikers are also given by The bosses.

The constitutional rights of free speech and free press have also been suspended and martial law has been practically declared. The Governor has made public to the people Porto Rico by means of a proclamation that all the rural zone is under the control of the police force, and that no meeting or

manifestation will be tolerated by the police.

From the investigation directly practiced. by Organizer P. Rivera Martinez, of the Cigarmakers' International Union of America at Juncos, it has been proved that the police disbanded violently and illegally a peaceful parade, of agricultural workmen, who were out on strike on February 4. Twelve strikers were clubbed by the police and wounded. Despite the fact that a number of pistol shots were fired by the police, nobody was wounded by the bullets. Nobody was arrested at the time of disbanding the parade, but the wounded, upon presenting themselves at the hospital to be cured, were arrested by the police to justify their brutal action, and later sentenced without even giving them any reasonable time to prepare their defense or to be represented by a lawyer. The flags which the strikers carried in the procession, even the American flag, were torn by the police from the hands of those who bore them.

On February 16, in Vieques, the strikers upon going into the town in the attitude of orderly workers, were attacked by the police and the managers or foremen of the sugar estates. Four workmen were killed, three of them wounded quite seriously and six more sustained lesser wounds. The wounded were victims of the policemen's bullets and slug shots, and the dead not only fell a target to the bullets of the police, but also to the bullets of the foremen of the centrals (sugar mills).

The laborers in defending themselves wounded two policemen with their machetes. More than one hundred arrests followed. In the town the police scattered the people with shots and blows. There was great dread in the town. The police closed the Federation office. Those who took part in this investigation were Organizer P. Rivera Martinez, Julio Aybar, Member of the House of Delegates, and Brother Bolivar Ochart.

At Anasco the police often attacked the country folk who were striking, and a meeting was dissolved amidst shots and blows. Five workers sustained wounds. At Arecibo a gathering was dispersed, an American flag was torn from the hands of an aged country striker, and he himself was hit by the policeman's billy. Two labor speakers were criminally clubbed át 4 a. m. in a country

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