LABOUR LEGISLATION. TO THE EDITOR,

Evening Post, Volume LXII, Issue 79, 30 September 1901, Page 2

LABOUR LEGISLATION. TO THE EDITOR,

Sir— Mr. Thomas Hanson gives a fair statement of tho • views held by most employers concerning tho labour question, The worker is judged merely as a machine, to make profit, not as a man. He is to bo free to work as hard as he can for what he can get, competing with uleuty of unionless unemployed, for a jqb to keep the wolf from the door. That is apparently the economic heaven for the employers. But in economics employers arc awfully behind the times. The., intelligent unionist is convinced that unjott means freedom to him. The old wiw v monnH freedom $o remain a drudge. Tfo 'unionist means 'to become a man and have his snare of the joys of life. If the profit made from his hide dwindle so much t<ho worse for profit. Employers do not look deep enough. They merely scratch the economic surface and dra\y nil conclusions from what they find there, or what grandfather found there. This is a time of transition, and the day of the .small shop and the individual battler is gone for ever, giving place to collective action, tho trust ana the union. Mrs. Partington with her broom would have a better chance of I sweeping back the incoming tide than tho employers of going back to the "good old ( times" of tho past. If the trust, which merely monopolises the product of labour, eliminates competition and then piles up millions out of the, people's pocket, why should not the worker's trust, which produces cverythbg, eliminate competition and claim at least a living wage?— l am, etc., UNION. Petone, 23rd September.