The Feilding Star. Orona and Kiwitea Counties Gazette SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1907. Mr Tregear's Latest.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 269, 18 May 1907, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Orona and Kiwitea Counties Gazette SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1907. Mr Tregear's Latest.

Those people who know Mr Tregear, the Secretary for Labour, are not disposed to take him seriously, and for that reason, probably, his utterances do not attract the attention the responsible position he holds deserves. As a man he is a pleasant, well-informed, nice-looking fellow, excellent company, and of decidedly attractive personality. As an official, he is about the most useless member of the Civil Service. He is a dreamer of the most impractical variety — he dreams of his work, while someone else performs it; he dreams of the possibilities of labour, while the labourer contributes liberally of his hard-earned substance to keep Mr Tregear in idleness and luxury; and he dreames schemes which are so impracticable that the listener puts his tongue in his cheek and wags his head knowingly. His latest contribution to the world of dreams is a proposal to give the Arbitration Court power to introduce a profitsharing element. Of course, it is impossible to judge of a scheme of the kind when the details are not only absent, but when the originator of the idea is the last man in the world to formulate a practical proposal. Still, it is safe to conjecture that as the Arbitration Court now has power to compel an employer whose business does not pay to pay wages beyond his means or give up business, Mr Tregear's idea is that the more successful employer should be penalised by being compelled to pay an additional wage according to the results of his management— that is, that the employee should not only obtain the benefit of the value of his labour, but that he should also be paid an additional sum as a tax on his employer's brains! We await with awe and wonder the next development of the dreams of the mis-called "Secretary for Labour."