The Dominion. SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1908. WORK AND WAGES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 211, 30 May 1908, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1908. WORK AND WAGES.

.—» — An observant American' investigator a few years ago said the essence of the Labour movement in Australasia was less work, and in America more wages.. The view is an exaggerated one, as all. attempts to sum up complex phenomena in a phrase must be, bnt .. it has a , solid substratum of truth. Tho whole Labour atmosphere in this part of tho world is without doubt tinged with the feeling that work'is a necessary evil to be undertaken solely for tho wages that can be obtained from it.. The spread of Socialistic sentiment has not stimulated industrial morality; has not oncouraged thrift, frugality, and strenuous industry; and there are fow'among its propagandists who would admit that work, 1 like virtue, is in a sense its own reward. Socialism had its origin in the high and generous impulses of men seoking a way to heal the open sores of civilisation. They produced a plan of economic and social reform which in the handslof their successors has undergone, 1 is still, undergoing, vast conscious and unconscious modification. Many of us bfelieve that its adoption, instead of heralding the millennium of which its advocates talk, ( would be a step backwards into a state of bondage and serfdom under new masters. In any case it is a plan whose successful working would call for an unselfishness, a sense of duty, and a patriot--1 ism immeasurably above that to be ob- - served at play in tho political, the industrial, and tho social relationships of [ men to-day. A more change in forms will not suffice if the spirit remains unchanged. Yet, despite this self-evident truth, what is the position? A pro- ? gramme of economic reform has been taken, invested with tho sanctity of a religion, then in its practical application stripped of its religious elements—the recognition of the duties that accompany ovory privilege—and made no more than a gigantic game of grab; and woo betide the weaker section. Instead of the sense of a common humanity being r strengthened and deepened, tile apostles !" of reform arc sotting class against class and widening the gulfs between them, j The ideas that are being disseminated, while professedly social, go to the root of private morals, and their influence is not a healthy one. Even from the Socialist's own point of view it is bad. It may bo argued that the attitude of tho worker to tho amplayer in no tuoro than & return for w attitude of tho

employer to the worker in the past—the attitude that offered a man not what ho was worth, but the least that he could be persuaded or cajoled into acccpting. This may be so, but two wrongs ( do not make a right, and it is no stand for a party of reform. There have been faults on both sides, and the true solution lies in arriving at a better understanding of each other's aims. Between the old school Socialist who believed that the wage system held the whole labour world on the margin of bare subsistence, depriving it of every hope of advance, and the early, Victorian individualist, who had nothing but praise for the wage system, there was no ground for reconciliation. Those days are long past. Every sane man recognises defects in our industrial conditions, and, as the individual perspective broadens, men will come more and more to see that Society is not improved by the application of formulas, but by sympathy and,co-operation, and by bearing common burdens through toilsome stages along which v all who wish well to their fellows can journey together. A great deal has been talked of the dignity of labour, and it is possible that people will come some day to understand the meaning of the phrase, and to see, ;I .thej are employers, that real success in life does not lie in squeezing as much out of the public and giving as little to their employees as can bo contrived by hook or by crook; nor, if they are workers, in demanding a maximum wage for a minimum of care and interest. To derive no pleasure in following one's occupation ; to treat the fellow worker who should boast of the amount of work he could do in a day as a heretic; and to repress the desire to " move round and make things hum" in their work that most healthy men feel, 1 can hardly be described as realising the dignity of labour. That will comc rather by looking on one's work not only, as a means of livelihood, but as a social .service worthy of performance for its own sake. It is, perhaps, asking too much in these times of labour tension to expect much heed to be taken of this phase of the labour question. Higher wages and fewer hours of work ,is the popular outcry. But there are many of the more thoughtful who realise that a limit must be reached in these demands—nay, in the majority of eases, has been reached —and that the question of work and wages must bo viewed dispassionately and equitably, and not merely from the interested standpoint of either the workei • or the employer whose capital finds the work. . , j ■ . \ " >