UNEQUAL DIVISION OF PROFITS.

Evening Star, Issue 12768, 22 March 1906, Page 8

UNEQUAL DIVISION OF PROFITS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Mr Seddon gave us both interesting and instructive figures at Foxton as to the marvellous increase in the wealth of New Zealand. Would it be treason to say that this wealth is very unequally divided, and to ask Parliament the reason ? Everyone knows that the man or woman whose only capital is his or her labor is never (or seldom) able to rise above a poverty-stricken condition, and, moreover, in proportion to their capital (wages) these people pay the largest share of taxation. Our Legislature,-when passing the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, seem to have been under the impression that manufacturers, and employers generally were the parties who were getting more than their share, and who therefore needed special legislation to retain them. Labor capitalists now see the Act does' not accomplish its desires. The reason is because the employers are not successful (or say they are not), and it is only when they are so that they pav the highest wages. I think all will admit th© correctness of this canon in "olitical economy. It is iot a hypothec, but a thesis—a fact maintained—that the- esa man ha new countries —and still more in old ones—who wrings steadily-increasing sums of money out of his fellow-citizens, and at Die same time does nothing at all to increase the wealth of the community, is the ground landlord, including the long leaseholder who sub-lets. Why is there no Conciliation and Arbitration Act to benefit the tenants, and check this always-increasing inequality, or, in other words, a Fair Rent Bill, to provide that either landlord or tenant shall be dble to compel the other to submit to arbitration, in- a similar manner to that in which wages are fixed ify the Arbitration Court? If the rents of shoos arc being continually raised, it naturally follows that to make a living the shopkeeper has to sell dearer tha.p he otherwise would, under pressure of competition. Does Parliament always mean to postulate that present and future unearned increment belongs to the individual, and not to the State? If Labor would boldly say we will have a party of onr own. led.by our own leader, this

question of the .unequal division of profits oould be readily solved. There are many, members who have studied social ■' questions at first hand—earliest men, yet captured- by their leaders solely f6r the purpose of upholding “ party,” neither of whom seem desirous to remove the economic blots that disfigure our -v social - system; Wo only raise £BOO,OOO annually by direct taxation. Surely this is not social justice. Trade unionism should have great power, and it is much to be regretted that those who lead are so wedded to Protection. Their policy protects the ground landlord at the expense of the manufacturer and all employers of labor, reacting again against labor. It is the legitimate right, it is the bounden duty of a politician to fight for the triumph of his principles, irrespective of .personal or paity friendships of hatreds. Politics should be the noblest of all human pursuits.—l am, etc., F.M. March 22.