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WORK AND WORKERS. -t

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WORK AND WORKERS. t ILt tBo .quarterly meeting of the Coal Con- II ciliation Board for the federated mining dis- tricts in England and North Wales held in London, Mr. F. J. Jones (Yorkshire), who presided, said -at the outset- that the proposals which the men had prepared for a new wage basis and a new agreement were published in the Press on July 10th, a week before they were received by the secretary to the coal- owners. The vice-chairman, Mr. Stephen Walsh, M.P., said they were in no way re- sponsible for the premature publication. The Chairman stated that the coalownera would be prepared to give careful considera- tion to the new wage proposals made to them by the representatives of the men on the Con- ciliation Board, and then meet the men s sec- tion of the Board for the full discussion of the proposals, together with any counter-pro- posals prepared by the, coalowners' side of the Board. Tiie pziooaeclings w«r» of. ooodingly brief -duration, occupying less than a quarter of an tour. It is likely to be some time, according to the Manchester Guardian, before the new agreement is finally completed. The men's proposals have to be first considered by the coalowners in the various districts, and they will formulate any amendments which they may consider to be necessary, and then they have to be discussed by the parties in the Con- ciliation Board. The main proposals sub- mitted to the coalowners as the basis of a new agreement lor a further period of three years provide for a new wage standard of 50 per eent. above the present wage standard of 1888, and & higher maximum wage. At the present moment wages in the English federated area stand at the maximum of 65 per cent. on the JB88 standard. According to ,a Labour correspondent the miners throughout the British coalfields have been warned by their officials to be prepared for another national strike, which may have to be declared at very short notice in support of the Scottish miners, and to obtain a settle- ment of all outstanding questions between miners and coalowners. In arbitrations in which employers arrange to redeem their liability to pay weekly com- pensation under the Workmen's Acts, it has been usual in Manchester for a separate sum -to be specified as costs for the workman s solicitor. At the Manchester County Court the other day, Judge Mellor, K.C., said that his attention had been drawn by members of the profession and others to the somewhat large scale of fees allowed in these cases. Some of them had been out of all proportion to the amount of work done in obtaining the awards, and in future he intended to disallow any costs which exceeded the B scale unless "the Registrar gave a certificate to the effect that there had been extra work which justified a higher remuneration. Attempts to introduce female labour into the Lancashire cloth warehouses, one of the few branches of the cotton and woollen trade up to now exclusively reserved for males, is meeting with a determined resistance by the branches of the Textile Warehousemen's Amalgamation. Nearly 200 operative bakers at Blackburn have presented notices because the masters refused their demand for improved pay. The men demand £2 weekly for foremen, 36s. for aecond hands, 34s. for adults, and improved pay for juniors. Four thousand engineering trades' labourers decided on Sunday at a meeting at Sheffield to accept the terms offered by the Employers' federation for a settlement of the wages de- mand made five months ago. The men now getting under 25s. weekly will receive 6d. advance instead of the shilling for which they asked, and those now receiving 25s. weekly will receive a shilling advance if they did not get an advance in July last. A special conces- sion of a shilling advance to cranedrivers, alingers, and engine-tenters is made. All the increases are to date from August 3rd. The fifty-three hours per week demand is left in abeyance. Further advances to North-Eastern Rail- way employees notified are the raising of locomotive timekeepers' wages from 25s. a week to a scale commencing at 26s. and rising to 30s., together with the concession of time and a-half for Sunday duty. Shed turners also receive an advance of Is. per week, and have their hours reduced from ten to nine. The advances date back to April 1st. By the end of the week there will be a good many farm labourers in Herefordshire out on strike in connection with the demand for higher wages, says a correspondent. The farmers in many cases state that they refuse to be dictated to, and many of them think that the labourer, with his cottage and garden, and his unlimited supply of cider, is better off than the labourer or the lower-class artisan in the towns. In some instances far- mers openly state that the men who have given notice will have to leave whether they wish to or not, and this has caused consider- • able consternation, as it is a development the men were not in the least prepared for. In many districts farmers have already raised the wages, and there the Workers' Unioo will not call upon the men to leave. A great grievance with a large number of civil servants whose permanent or established 8ervice was preceded by temporary or it4n tabligh,ed service is that now they are o?' the establishment the whole of the time of their temporary service is not allowed to eount for pension. Under the Superannuation Act of 1887, Section 3, power was given to the Treasury to recognise the whole of such tem- porary or unestablished service for pension, and this has been done in many instances. A petition is now being prepared by the All Ser- Tioe Pension Association of Civil Servants asking the Treasury to remove the disqualifi- cation entirely, especially as the non-recogni- tion of all unestablished service tends to throw many Civil servants in their old age upon the open labour market owing to their inability to live on their curtailed pensions. The dissatisfaction that exists among the sma of the Laudoa Eirm Biriiuul* am,. httiarm BUT; AJOIIUOU county council meeting tnis wetfk, a petition, signed by 1,069 members of the fire brigade, asking for increased wages and various other improvements in the condi- tions of their service, having been received. The firemen suggest that in future negotia- tions may be conducted on their behalf by the National Union of Corporation Workers. In this connection, however, the Fire Brigade Committee says that it has recently had under consideration the case of a fireman who three times refused to obey an order at a fire, and the man resigned when the Committee recom- mended his dismissal. The trade union has since demanded the man's reinstatement. Upon this point the .Committee states the action of the union must be considered as a formal effort of an outside union, which in- cludes among its members employees in ser- vices other than fire brigades, to induce the Council to accept their demand in a matter of disciplinary punishment, and therefore in- directly to.) acknowledge that the Council re- cognises in respect of its fire brigade service* the right of the men to use their trade union for official purposes. The 'Council has there- fore again to consider much the same problem that was presented to it last year and was not definitely answered. Six of the eight labourers; on strike at Alth- don, who were fined, with costs, £23 7s. at Saffron Walden Petty Sessions a month ago for assaulting and intimidating non-union men, were apprehended on Friday on war- rants and taken to Cambridge Gaol in de- fault of payment, two of them for two months, and four for fourteen days' hard labour. A large number of their fellow- strikers accompanied them to Bartiow Station and cheered them off.

FRENCH NAVAL AVIATOR KILLED.…

I AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

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SPORTS AND PASTIMES.

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MARKETS.

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KEVIEW OF THE CORN TRADE.

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