KEEP UP WAGES.

Evening Star, Issue 7248, 27 June 1887, Page 4

KEEP UP WAGES.

TO THE EDITOR.

SfR, —Ifc is quite amusing to read in your issue the speech of Mr Runciman at' the- Green Island meeting lost week. He said 'that if the working men would take fair remuneration for their labor this would be a great exporting country; and ho went on to say that if mechanios got half their present pay they would be well paid. All this because he had worked on the roads for 4j Cd per day. Now I have worked for less money than 4s Cd per day, and quite as hard as Mr Runciman ever did at a time when ho was working on the public roads in the'pay'of £ho Provincial Government. I was fossicking for golijl on £he Shap River, and contributing my shar.e to $e general avenue ( f the provinco. Still, I fai} to gee th'&t'the low prices ruling then helped in any way to the progress of the country; I believe the reserve to have been the case.

As regards the millers in the early days wanting Protection because they could not sell a ton of flour, I recollect that Mr Runciman held the only milling property north of bury as far r- the Lunstan on the one road, and asfarasO.,,;":aru en £l)s other. I would ask him wau it the high wag'es (4s £d per day) ruling then that caused the want of trade* I think not, Why did he not start to export then, when wages were one-half their present rate ? If Mr Runciman were to take the average wages now as against what ruled at the time he allude to, lie would find, as a working man, that he has tho balaneo in Jjis favor, for, ha'l not the present Government plaoed so many of the present unemployed on the land, 1 a"n convinced that he could have engaged ablebodied men for their porridge, which I suppose would be about the price he would like to pay for labor, judging from the tone of his speech. —lam, &s.', ' A Struggling Pauper. Bumside, June SO;'