OUR LABOR REPRESENTATIVES.

Evening Star, Issue 8615, 8 September 1891, Page 3

OUR LABOR REPRESENTATIVES.

10 THE KDITOB. Sib, —My sympathy has always been with the underpaid workers in our midst, for 1 have often been a spectator of their sufferings under the pinch of poverty. Hence I hailed with pleasure the return of so many labor representatives to Parliament, thinking that some measure of relief would be at last granted to the masses of the people. But, alas! there appears to be no prospect, so far as this Parliament is concerned. The Premier seems to wheel about like a political Jim Crow, while the labor representatives furiously pull his chariot, owing to the increased honorarium of L 240 being dangled before their eyes like a bunch of carrots before the proverbial donkey’s. So these champions of the workers are prepared

to back up the Hon. Mr Reliance In continuing to raise revenue through the exertions of the poor people and their children, without a word of protest.

Why, air, 1 expected that the lint thing that our labor representatives would have done would have been to urge that the dutfea on all the necessaries of life must be abolished, excepting where it would interfere with the protection of colonial industries. But, sir, with the exception of Mr W. Hutchison, to whom ail honor is due, they are silent, and seem to be engrossed with the most notorious selfishness. So we find that their loudmouthed clamoring for retrenchment during the late General Election turns out to be nothing but bunkum where their own interests are concerned. Mr Earnshaw is a fine example. He thinks L3OO per annum necessary. While many of the workmen in the colony have to maintain a family upon an average of 30s per week, yet ha t.ilnks it is not sary to give them immediate relief through the Customs. I, however, hope that at the next General Election those so-called champions of the Labor party will be placed where they onght to be—namely, at the bottom of the poll,—l am, etc., John Gore. Dnnedin, September 7.