The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1891.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 308, 30 December 1891, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1891.

For tio C6UC3 that lac!:s assistance, For the \Tions that needs rcristafloe, For tlio futuro in tha distance. And the eocd that can do.

Whatever the merits or demerits of the Government policy may be, Ministers have at least a right to ask from respectable journals that when they make statements of fact regarding the actions of the Cabinet they shall adhere to the truth. Since the accession of the present Government to office, however, the Conservative journals of the colony have indulged systematically in misrepresentations of the grossest kind, and have iounded upon their baseless accusations virulent criticisms which become pointless the moment the facts of the case are investigated.

An instance of this kind occurred in the columns of our morning contemporary the other day. In the course of a leading article criticising the Government system of letting work on the co-operative system, the writer stated:—

The Government fixes the price to be given for the work, and as the men are all electors, and Ministers do not pay tho cost themselves, there is no reason why they should not fix a very high rate. They are taking care to do so apparently, for according to tho statement of Mr Vickerman, the Government ontriHoer, tho men working on tho Helensville extension make from ten to twelve shillings a day. Tho Ministers have thus, on their own personal authority, placed themselves in the position of direct employers of labour, and have commenced a competition with every contractor, and county council, and every settler in tho country. Settlers in the North cannot afford to give twelve shillings a day for labour, nor can county councils. The Government, therefore, have established this Gtubo of aQairs—that they give more than double the ordinary rate of wagee.

Now, what are the facts ? The Helensville extension line, as our contemporary knows perfectly well, has been let by contract, and is now m course of construction by Messrs John McLean and Sons. The Government have not interfered in tiie smallest degree between the contractors and their workmen. What they have done is simply to adopt lor the Hikurangi railway, now being constructed on the co-operative principle, precisely the same scale of pay as Messrs McLean are giving a number of workmen who are employed by them upon piecework. The pay will also be made subject to the same conditions as this private firm of contractors concede to their men. So much for the charge that the Government " give more than double the ordinary rate of wages." Although Messrs McLean bear the reputation of being liberal employers, they are not exactly such philanthropists as to pay "double the ordinary rate of wages " upon a contract which keen competition had cut down to the lowest point. The price mentioned is simply a fair one ; it will yield to a good navvy about a shilling an hour, and some of the men employed upon it, beirjg their own masters, choose to work longer than the standard eight hours, and thus make exceptionally good wages per day, but an ordinary labourer would not earn more than six shillings a day, and some even less. "VVe are not altogether enamoured of any scheme v;hich will have the effect of needlessly widening the sphere of the Government as an employer. The tendency is to create a privileged class who are maintained at the expense of their less-favoured fellow-countrymen, and the system is peculiarly dangerous in a country whose political institutions are based upon the broad suffrage of " one man one vote." A vast army of public servants wielding such power becomes a danger to the State. There is, however, no very essential difference between letting public works to workmen through the medium of a contracting firm and letting the same works to combinations of workmen at a fixed rate of remuneration, by the piece. The system is, however, purely experimental, and although the trials hitherto have proved singularly successful, it is too early yet to pronounce a final judgment upon the system. It should, we think, be pursued with very great caution, and only where special circumstances justify a departure from the ordinary method of public tender. At the same time, in fixing the scale of remuneration for such work, we do not see lhat the Government could have proceeded upon-a more equitable or unobjectionable plan than to adopt the same rates of remuneration as are actually being paid by a private firm of contractors (or similar work in an adjacent district.