THE FIGHT FOR THE CRUST.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3995, 28 July 1913, Page 5

THE FIGHT FOR THE CRUST.

[TO THE EDITOR] Sir,—l have not much time for philosophy in general, but your heading to the correspondence column in a recent issue set me thinking. Being just a mere manual wage worker it is a philosophy I am interested in—the science of getting a bare living for me and mine. That being so, I know if I wish to do this I must work. It is one of Nature’s decrees. John Ruskin (if I recollect aright) said : “No man could maintain his physical and mental health without some form of useful occupation. Personally, I believe this to be literally true, and I think most people upon investigation will agree that the quotation is not far from the mark. So I must work, not alone from economic pressure, but because being an average wage worker I feel more or less disturbed in body and mind. If my physical and mental powers are not usefully employed. But as the earth and all the good things of this earth have been cornered and are held by the employing class, in order to live I have to ask permission of one of the employing class to allow me to work and make a profit for him. In short, I have to find a boss. And I know beforehand that the boss won’t give me as much value for my work as my work is worth. He wouldn’t employ me a day jf lie couldn’t make a profit out of rue. And I don’t like it. Unreasonable, yes T may be, but so far as I can see “profit” is at the root of most of the social evil, and of all the industrial unrest. And the unrest has on'y just begun. In a recent issue was a typical instance of how the wage-earner (and others )ar e misrepresented, bamboozled, and daylight robbed. I refer to the incident where in a southern coal mine the hewers were awarded an advance of Id per ton on the hewing rate. By the time the coal reached the consumer, via the profit mongers, the increase had swollen from a penny to six shillings per ton, to the accompaniment no doubt of protests from a united Press and employing class oil the “harassing exactions of Labor,” how “Labor is hampering industry,” “Awful agitators,” etc, etc. This is but one instance. One is tempted to ask: “What is the ‘great sane non-revolutionary section of Labor’ going to do about it?” I don’t know if your correspondent speaks of Canterbury threshing from personal experience, but I put in several seasons on Canterbury mills, and I don’t exaggerate when I say that on an average mill'in an average season at piece-work rates the men do not earn 6cl per hour for the time worked. In 'the early part of the season 20 hours work daily is quite common on some mills. And the actual threshing is as heavy if not heavier than ,any other work in the country. But when the worker asks to be miid a living wage for his time and labor, the arbitrator says the industry cant’ afford if, and the arbitrator ought to know. So what’s to be done I wonder if dear land has anything to do with it? Anyhow it might pay “the great, sane, non-revolutionary, etc., etc.,” to inquire into it.—l am, etc., WAGE WORKER.