THE BAY LABOR SYSTEM.

Evening Star, Issue 10394, 16 August 1897, Page 1

THE BAY LABOR SYSTEM.

A pew weeks ago wo briefly reviewed a very able paper by Mr W. Mainer on the policy adopted by the Public Works Department of New South Wales in substituting day labor for the contract system. It appeared in the June number of ' Liberty,' the journal of the Australasian National League—New South Wales section—and has attracted a good deal of attention, paving been frequently referred to in Parliament when the question of day labor on public works was recently under consideration in connection with the notorious cases of the telephone tunnels and the Government Printing Office. These matters have been the subject of inquiry by select committees of_the Legislative Assembly, which, so far as we are aware, have not yet presented their reports. The paper subsequently published, as noted above, was read before the members i jointly of the Builders and Contractors' Association, the Chamber of Manufacturers, the Australasian National League, and the Government Contractors' Association, and gave rise to a most interesting discussion, extending over two evenings, there being a large attendance on each occasion.

The debate was opened by Captain Hynes, who deall almost entirely with the economic aspect of the question. He pointed out that one of the gravest dangers of the present day was the fact that political adventurers, with little or no knowledge of economic laws, had obtained an ascendancy in public life, and that, unfortunately, others who occupied more stable positions in the community knew very little more. In New South Wales such men had been unfortunately, he said, numerically so powerful that they succeeded in having day labor, minimum wage, and so on—all socialistic schemes—adopted by the Government. " These led "up to the ultimate control of industry " by the State; and they had next the "Board of Experts, which was the first "step in this direction." The whole mistake, he continued, made by all these people and by the Minister of Works was that they thought they would regulate the price to bo paid for labor. " They could not. They were only middle- " meu, and it was only the users of labor could fix the price. It was fixed by " the economic law of supply and demand. " This was one beneficent law, and another "/was the law of competition, which was " the cause of England's greatness." Competition, he averred, had increased the wages of labor from 50 to 100 per cent., and at the same time lowered the prices of commodities. This was recognised by the American people, who, while adopting a system of Protection against the outside world, allow no inside monopolies, and put down, or did their utmost to put down, trusts and rings. Ministers, he declared, whilst assuming to help labor, were doing it a cruel injustice by lessening the demand and forcing the workers to rely on the Government. All this tended towards enlarging a system of political patronage andx corruption, in the weakening of the fibre of the national character and its .self-reliance, instead of to a development of that spirit of enterprise and adventure which had helped to make the nation what it is. Mr David Davis, the hon. treasurer of the Chamber of Manufacturers, in a decidedly lively speech, made several excellent points. His objection to the day-labor system, he said, was that it was a socialistic scheme, and that he feared Bellamy's book had done- an immense amount of harm to the colony, as it "had been thrown " about a great deal, and allowed certain "men to make stalking horses of the "working classes. These meu had got " into Parliament, and had exercised a very "bad effect." He knew something, he went on to say, of the various works done under day labor, and he was positive that they could not be done at the same cost as by contract. He was a member of the Woollahra Council, and they had tested the principle, with the result that in the matter of breaking metal for roads the cost of day labor was almost exactly double what it was by contract. " It was their first and " last experience of day labor for breaking "stones." The tendency of the system was to make everybody look to the State for employment, and men, instead of putting their sons to trades, thought only of getting them Government billets. Mr Kent, the vice-president of the Australasian National Xeague, said he spoke as the representative of a body which put forward as its first principle the good of the whole community. The League believed tflat the interests of the working men were bound up with the interests of all other classes ; and he wished them to consider this subject without class bias, and from an economical and political standpoint. The system introduced, he i asserted, would involve the employment \ of an enormous number of Government servants; and how, he asked, would these men be appointed 1 It was pretty certain that political influence would play a prominent part. " Could any man expect that a " out influence would get the same show " as a man recommended by a member of " Parliament ?" Mr W. T. Poole emphasised the remarks of the previous speaker. He knew, he said, from his own experience that it was utterly impossible for work to be carried out as economically, effectively, and truthfully by day labor as by contract, and that the difference in cost did not go to the contractor by "bullocking" the men. It was obtained by his superior knowledge and powers of organisation. Mr Mainer's paper, he said, showed that the people of the colony were not getting the same value for their money, especially in the case of the printing office, as under contract. He regarded, however, the loss of the money as a bagatelle compared with the fact that if the daylabor system were extended " they "would have brought into existence "one of the most tremendous machines " which the ingenuity of man could devise " for political corruption." The only person present who had a word to say in defence of the day-labor system was Mi' Grant, a former candidate for a seat in Parliament as a Labor-Socialist. He contended that Mr Mainer had failed to show "that day labor was inferior from "the point of view of the general com"munity." It was only in its infancy. "Competition had failed to make them prosperous." Being asked to explain how it was that workmen left private employment to accept lower wages on Government works, he rather gave himself away by replying: " Government employment is more certain, and there are more holidays"—a'statement which evoked some amdsenient.and the ejaculation by one of the meeting: " The Government stroke!"

It is not without an object that we direct attention to these proceedings in New South "Wales. The moral is obvious.