"ARISTOCRATIC LUMPERS."

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 217, 13 September 1890, Page 8

"ARISTOCRATIC LUMPERS."

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—During the present strike numbers of local professional men, lawyers, rowing men, surveyors, merchants, commission agents, etc, etc., have taken up a mosb un* reasonable and illogical attitude against organised labour. They have gone down to the wharves and acted as labourers for no other apparent purpose than that of injuring our cause. Yet our cause is theirs. Is it not upon the toils of the labourer they all live, yet instead of helping him to better his social position and increase his wages they enter with the wildest glee into a capitalistic combination intended to crush the workman down. If our middlemen, brokers, merchants, lawyers, etc., thoroughly comprehended their own position they would as one man stand up and defend us, because upon the prosperity of the masses depends the prosperity of all. Their present attitude is bfot of

the delfa who sawed through the branch upen which he sat. Where do the fees of attorneys come from? From whence is derived the clerk's paltry pay? Where cometh the profits of merchants, brokers and commission agents ? The answer is, " From the sweat of the labourer on wharf and steamship, in mine and mill, on the' farm and in the bush."—l am, etc., F. R. Bust, Secretary Trades and Labour Council.