Old Grumble on the Late Strike

Feilding Star, Volume XI, Issue 44, 26 September 1889, Page 3

Old Grumble on the Late Strike

'■■*■ ' Capital has often, and very truly, been •called the " child of labour " for there is 110 wealth that labour is not the source of. ISTow, for instance, the ore while in the "bowels of the Earth is . worthless, but, brought, to the surface it has a value in pence ; the iron separated from the ore is worth shillings ; wrought into horse shoes jotinds ; . needles, hundreds of pounds ; pen-knife blades, thousands ; and when manipulated into the delicate watch spring its value is enhanced into hundreds of thousands of pounds. That once apparent worthless ore has of such immense value by labour 'and labour only ; but does he whose toil has produced such wealth become fairly enriched by his labour ? Hardly ! Fer that ungrateful child which he has conceived swallows up all over and above what is required for his actual wants. And so it has ever . been since history began to record tbe actions of men. The mo it ungrateful of all oflsprings. Capital l.a-3 always, while enjoying the luxuries its parent has bestowed: upon its section of of mankind, arbitrarily kept the authors .of its existence in constant necessity. Oapital is really the accumulation of surplus labour the gathering to -gether of such •extra toil as has been performed in the world over and above what is sufficient in providing the human race with its natural requirements. Did capital stop at this it Would harmless,; but as it is the most ungrateful of children, so is it the most avaricious. And its increasing acumulatidns are the whet stones that sharpen its insatiable appetite, and make it more greedy- to clutch the morsel from the .toiler's mouth. Hence is it that where -wealth is most collosal there the hollow «ye of poverty glares most keenly. Here in NeW Zealand none are abjectly poor, ■because wealth has not jet centered in the tfevr. To my mind, the strike in London marks, the commencement of an era of contests between the parent, Toil, and its . luxurious oflspring, Capital. It is the first real struggle betwixt them, for although.the present ceutury is conspicuous for the frequency and severity df collisions •tetween masters and men ; and Labour di-tating'terhis to Capital is no new thing •to us." The strikers, in these cases, have been belonging to some particular craft, iJutOhever before .has unskilled labour veviriced such an organised resistance to the greed" o£ capitalists as that just concluded. . ' The ready and substantial assistance the workmen of Australasia have hastened to send to these, the poorest class of laborers in .London, in, their bold attempt to better their condition, is a noble evidence of their sympathy with the distressed, of vvhich every man in these colonies must feel, justly, proud. .And. we may rest assured that the insinuation that they are But playing 'into the hands of Socialist Agitators will never be allowed to influence • them, ; ''neither wih the declaration that the '' position of London will be imperilled by their action" prevent them . acting generously, and; their reply will be that 'if London caniiot exist but by the starvation of . thousands the sooner the fate' Of the 'ancient cities overtakes it the better for humanity at larg.. .ryjJ'A A. '-AAA. A .A AAA Old; Geumble;