own vessels, the competition of foreign and British liners and freight vessels, paying low rates of wages and carrying goods and passengers between Australian ports in connection with their through voyages, is severely felt. This matter is at present the cause of lively discussion in certain labor circles especially affected, but it is naturally of only temporary importance, in view of projected and probable legislation, and hardly deserves more than passing reference in this report for that reason.

The railway employees constitute a strong body of government servants, and in most States are thoroughly organized, both as benefit and as trade organizations. Their relation to the public in the dual position of employees and citizens is the occasion of some embarrassment, especially where a dispute arises over conditions of labor. Indeed, the problem of reconciling these rights and interests is a serious one in case of all public employees in countries like the Australian States, where a democratic form of government prevails and the body of public servants is very large in proportion to the population. In every State visited civil servants were found to be well organized and using pressure, both as labor unions and politically, to maintain wages during the period of retrenchment necessitated by the drought, or to better their conditions of employment. In Victoria it is stated that they were able to turn elections by political influence and thus to increase very largely the salary expenditure of the State. In any case, a situation was created that led to the passage of laws partially disfranchising them, by giving them separate and limited representation in parliament. The regulations enforced in case of railway employees in that State forbade their unions from belonging to a political organization. The relation of the Melbourne Trades Hall to politics has already been described in another part of this report. In the spring of 1903 certain organizations of railway servants resolved to unite with that body. Some branches of the society, especially those including less skilled employees, had been members of the Hall for a considerable period without objection from the government. The railway authorities, however, interfered when this new move was planned, objecting especially to the action of the locomotive engineers, whose affiliation with the Trades Hall, it was claimed, might involve them in some general strike and thus paralyze the public traffic. The engineers had a number of previous grievances relating to the retrenchment policy pursued by the government. (It should be remarked by way of parenthesis that the railways of Victoria have been running at a heavy loss, which has to be made up out of general revenues.) So the engineers' society, against the advice of the Trades Hall officials, who considered a strike. over this question inopportune at the time, decided to fight the issue.

The minister of railways had given an order for the suspension of the executive officers of that union if the body did not withdraw from the Hall, and in reply to this the strike was declared on May 8, 1903. The men were overconfident, and by their action antagonized the public. They made the fatal mistake of deserting their engines wherever they chanced to be at the strike hour, stranding train loads of passengers and goods in remote localities, and endangering life and traffic. While organized labor supported an action of which there seems to have been far from unanimous approval in their own ranks, the hostility of the mass of the public appears to have been very bitter. At least this is an inference from the sentiment displayed by people of all classes three months later, when the writer first visited the State. This inference is further confirmed by the fact that the government was able to bring in, without serious opposition, a bill providing that any person leaving the state railway service without fourteen days' previous notice, without proving good and sufficient reason for so doing, should be considered to have struck. The penalty for this offense, or for any violation of subsequent provisions of the act for which there were not severer penalties, was a fine not to exceed $487, or imprisonment not to exceed 12 months, or both. All pensions, increases of pay, and other rights acquired by the present strikers under existing regulations were declared forfeited. Any person advising or soliciting men to strike was liable to arrest without a warrant, and without bail. Any person collecting or receiving strike funds was guilty of an offense against the act, as was any person publishing any news or article intended to encourage the strike. The issue of publications containing such articles was subject to confiscation. Any meeting of more than 6 persons, to discuss or encourage the strike, whether in a building or in the open air, was an unlawful meeting, and any person attending was liable to fine and imprisonment. Police had full right of entry, without a warrant, to any building where such a meeting was suspected to be held. Such a bill, brought forward by a responsible government in a democratic parliament, suggests a state of public opinion extremely adverse to the strikers, and as a matter of fact the latter were utterly beaten, and the position of the government was probably strengthened politically by reason of the conflict.

The wages and hours of employees upon the New South Wales government railways are representative of those prevailing throughout the castern States of Australia. In Western Australia the rates of pay are from 10 to 20 per cent higher, and in the gold fields trackmen are allowed 24 cents a day, and other employees $1.70 a week, special allowance.

AVERAGE DAILY RATES OF WAGES ON THE NEW SOUTH WALES GOVERNMENT RAILWAYS.

a Including spring makers and Oliver wheel and steam-hammer smiths.
Per annum, also house.
e Per annum.

In South Australia engine drivers, firemen, guards, and maintenance men work 8 hours for a day's pay (i. e., 48 hours per week), and the porters at a number of stations do the same, the remainder working 9 hours for a day's pay.

In Victoria enginemen and firemen work 9 hours, and guards and maintenance men 8 hours, for a day's pay. As regards porters the 8hour system applies at the metropolitan stations, but at the suburban and principal country stations 9 hours, and at the small country stations 10 hours is worked for a day's pay.

In New South Wales the locomotive-running men work 108 hours. per fortnight. Traffic porters generally work 9 hours, but a number work longer, for a day's pay. Eight hours constitutes a full day's work for the maintenance men.

In Queensland the locomotive and traffic men work 9 hours for a day's pay, the 8-hour system applying to the maintenance men.

COST OF LIVING AND COMPARATIVE CONDITION OF LABOR, AUSTRALIA AND UNITED STATES.

Comparing Australian labor conditions in general with those of the United States and Canada, certain broad differences at once present themselves. One of these is the greater uniformity of compensation prevailing in the former country. Not only are wages more even throughout the extent of the Commonwealth, but they vary less as between different workers in the same trade or as between workers in different trades in the same place. Consequently no such high wages are to be found in Australia as in the leading American cities. In the skilled occupations, and in case of factory operatives, both nominal and real wages are lower than in America in cities of equal relative importance and population. Nowhere are there building mechanics receiving $5 and $6 a day, as in the larger towns of the United States in the case of organized trades, and nowhere in Australia are there mechanics doing $5 and $6 worth of work in an 8-hour day. An instance came to the attention of the writer in Australia where the cost of laying 461,413 brick in an electric power house and car shed was $4,098.08, or $9.31 per thousand. If this were a piecework rate, a good New York bricklayer, in the same class of construction, would earn about $16.75 in a 9-hour day. In Sydney it was noticed that bricklayers often, if not usually, worked with their pipes in their mouths. In other words, partly, doubtless, for climatic reasons, a slower rate of work is maintained in Australia than in America.

All that was said of New Zealand workmen in this connection might be repeated with some modification of those in Australia. There is less premium put upon exceptional competency, there is more of the lock step in the way men work, and there is more of the class spirit among workmen than in the United States. The potent forces and incentives of an environment favorable to industrial evolution are to some degree lacking. On the other hand, there are nowhere the depressing and depraving surroundings of our worst city slums, nowhere the same systematic and inveterate sweating that can be found in certain trades in New York and Chicago, nowhere perhaps as much industrial oppression as is reported in parts of our mining regions. In proportion to the standards for skilled labor, the unskilled laborer in Australia is paid more for his work than is his fellow in the United States; and his absolute wages are higher in country districts than they are in our Eastern and Southern States. In nearly every instance, also, this common laborer is of the same race and language as his employer; frequently he is a native of Australia; while in Americe the unskilled worker is usually a foreigner by birth, speaking a different tongue and accustomed to a different standard of living

than his employer and work of higher grade. The relatively greater influence of the craltiess dames Las nad much to do with haping the policy of organized labor in Astralasia. But in that country there is a limited demand for labor, and one that finetuates violently with climatic and general economic change. Australia iremote from great employing markets. There is not the same chance of continuity of employment as in America, and when work is lacking thousands are sometimes obliged to desert their own country to seek occupation- abroad. This is what chances to be occurring at present, and the population of some States in this almost virgin country is either decreasing or is not increasing as rapidly as the excess of births over deaths would imply. Laboring men oppose immigration, and the development that would ensue in all probability upon an influx of new population is a matter upon which they are not enlightened. Probably this is because they still remember the contests of the past to keep out convict labor, and later to abolish a system of assisted immigration that was turned to the advantage principally of large employers. There is therefore no competition of rival nationalities in Australian workshops, and this great force in favor of industrial progress is lacking. The tendency to governmentalism, inherited, it may be, from the earlier systems of settlement, which brought assisted colonists rather than a natural selection of individualists to many Australian colonies, probably weakens individual enterprise and the self-help spirit to some extent. Industrial establishments are largely controlled by individual owners or coilectively managed by their proprietors, and there is therefore less promotion of men from the ranks to positions of control and trust than in the United States where combination and corporate control have put the administration of industrial capital so largely in the hands of promoted workmen. This fact probably accounts in part for the presence of a greater class spirit, which, apparently, at least, seems to exist in Australia, though it is a spirit out of harmony with the general sentiment of the country. Evidences are not lacking of an intelligent desire, on the part of employers, inspired by considerations of purely business utility and to a degree by more beneficent motives, to further the sense of common interest between employers and employees. In one large ironworking establishment, where locomotives are constructed for a State railway system, many permanent hands are shareholders in the company. The Colonial Sugar Refining Company, one of the largest industrial corporations of Australasia, maintains among its employees a partially self-supporting provident fund, and also subsidizes a benefit society at an aggregate annual expense of nearly $28,000; besides which the company has given "donations" of over $60,000 to the provident fund within the last 12 years. A large mercantile firm in Melbourne, with nearly 60 branch stores in Victoria, distributes a con