SEDDONISM INDICTED.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12368, 6 December 1905, Page 7

SEDDONISM INDICTED.

THE INCREASE IN THE COST OF LIVING.

In tho course of a powerful article oa the effect of Seddonism "Ondtdue" writes in tho "Otago Daily Times' , :— I answer tho claim of tho Seddoniaa Party by affirming—Jind 1 challenge Sir ■ Joseph Ward and Jiie Press to disprove my statement—that the net rceulte of twelve years of reckless, wasteful, and support-buying administration have been the lowering of our credit abroad as well as'creating a distrust of the men .who . are running the country, and a reduction in tho purchasing power of the we gee of every worker, male and female, . throughout tho colony by at least 35 percent. These are not wild etatements. Every reader of the Horn© papers knows the tone which, financial experts adopt when referring to our financial methods. Every colonist knows that we have seized the sinking funds and appropriated the last penny pieoo we can lay our hands on; every Government worker knows that in every government department mon are being pub on who are not wanted; every echoolboy can tell you tho increase in our indebtedness, and, worse than all, tb* imperative need that exists to keep piling it up. There ie not a married woman in Dunedin—not one mother of I a family—can deny that in tho cost o£ i house rent, bread, milk, butter, oatI meal, flour, potatoes, meat, etc., she is paying anytiiiug up to half as mucU 1 again as ehe was six to ten years ago. Tho following is from tho official report presented to the House of Repw-s teritatives last session by Mr Tregear:—" The Blight advance in workers wages has kept, 1 repeat, no fair ratio witm the advance of the price of tho necessaries of life. _ Mr Coghlan, tho Government statistician of New South, - Waios, affirms thet wages,in New Zealand increased 8 \ per cent, in fifteen years. As house rent in tho cities bee increased at least 30 per cent, j and many of the necessaries of life from 10 per cent, to 60 per cent, in tfaat time, tho reason for what employers stigmatise as ' the incessant demand for higher wages' becomes not only to be understood, but to bo excused." ' '. \ Will any housewife deny the accuracy of tine above P Does she need even to be told it P And who ie responsible? Tho answer is as olear as that put forward by tlio Seddonians'on the platform and vi tho Press. If the high, prices and increased output of wool . and frozen mutton has made our colony prosperous in tho general sense of the • term, and if tho individual worker haa at the same timo found the burden of life harder instead of easier, tho fault must Ho with the gang of " plunderers and blunderers" (the term is. LordBeaoonsfield's, who used it with much, loss excuse than I do), who are. touring tflie country at this hour, at your ex- , pens© and my expense, preaching "« policy of " bribery and -bullying."