A WORKING MAN'S PROGRAMME CORRESPONDENCE. A WORKING MAN'S PROGRAMME

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume V, Issue 735, 29 February 1884, Page 2

A WORKING MAN'S PROGRAMME

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Star. Sik, — In a leading article which appeared in a recent issue o£ the Star, you spoke with a creditable diffidence of labor as a " machine." It appears to me that settlers generally in the colonies are getting more and more into the habit of looking upon the laboring portion of the community as so many machines, and that without the slightest diffidence or the least thought as to the welfare of the people they wish to make use of. For instance, during last winter there appeared in your columns a letter from a Norman by correspondent, who lamented the dearness of labor, which prevented more bush being felled. Now, all bush is chopped by contract, and so great has been the competition among laboring men of late in this district that a great portion of bush down this season was fallen at a price which, considering also the inclement season, did not and could not be remunerative to the workman. But this fret does not stand in the way of men who to suit their own ends clamour for still cheaper laboi\ The contractor suffers, and the storekeeper who supplies him, in many instances ; but still the man who has taken a bush farm with insufficient capital tries to get more work for less expenditure of oil out of his human machine. In the social economy of Bentham, it is pointed out that all efforts should be for the " greatest happiness of the greatest number." Now the working men are in the majority, and with the present liberal franchise they should have the remedy in their own hands. In the first place, it is imperative that State immigration should at once cease. Without wishing to disparage any individual, it may be remarked that the class of men sent out by our Agents-General have been of an exceedingly unsuitable class. Where there is a demand for labor, there the supply of good steady working men will follow. The best laborers we have have paid their own passages from home or from the neighboring colonies. Ifc is not fair that these should be taxed to find funds for the introduction of men to struggle with them in the competition for a livelihood. An attractive scale of wages will bring labor without State aid, and if we have not that attraction, we have no right to fetch men here to be disappointed themselves and injure, by glutting the labor market, those already established. We have no large and steady employer in this district. Mr. Caverhill has spent more money ia labor than any single individual, but even he cannot employ many men all the year round. It is not, in the present system of farming by machinery, requisite to keep a large staff of employes. The laboring man is consequently only employed at certain seasons of the year, at harvest time, at shearing time, or at bushfalling in winter. If the workman does not make more than his keep, and that of his v.ife and family, at any job ho may get, he and that family are likely to starve during the intervals of enforced idleness. When wages are quoted at so much a day, it should also be stated that a man cannot get constant, but only intermittent employment. It is, however, useless complaining unless one at the same time seeks a way to redress his grievance. In union there is strength, and co-operation offers a way out of the difficulty ; I don't mean a mere trading company, but co-operation in its widest sense. We have too many middlemen to eat up the profits of the producer, a take toll from the food which goes into the mouth of the consumer. We have too many unwealthy loafers, resident and absentee, who incorporated as banking companies, levy a tax upon the whole of the colonists. A co-opera-tive bank will change this, and a co-opera-tive society importing its own goods dealing with its own bank.aud having agencies at Home for the sale of produce and the purchase of imports to this colony would so enhance the profits of the farmer that he could afford to pay a decent wage to the laboring men. The latter would also be a member of the society and share in the profits of the community. Those who have a voice in the government of the colony, and those also who have the management of local affairs, are in the habit of assessing the value of a man's labor at the price for which he can live. They never consider that, unless the laborer has a wage sufficient to warrant his hope of eventually advancing from out of the laboring class, the colony ceases to be attractive to those elsewhere, and devoid of encouragement to daily toil to those in it. This colony was not formed for the advancement of the employees of labor only, and the laboring man, in coming here, hoped, by receiving a remunerative wage, to become in time an employer of labor himself. Ifc is unjust, then, to tax him to find money for the introduction of those who will retard, if they do not destroy, his chance. Ia conclusion, I would remind all working men that their dearest privilege is open to them in the exercise of the franchise, that an election must follow the ensuing session, and that it behoves all to register their names on the electoral roll. The working men should pnfc ia their own nominee, and let them choose one who will advocate the abolishment of State immigration, the reduction of the Civil Service, an entire change in the department which places the finances of the country in the hands of a banting corporation, and an immediate cessation to that policy which ha<j earned for the colony the name of the great loan land. — I am, &c, Observer. [It may not be worth while, but still we would point out that our correspondent, while misquoting our language, also imputes to us a sentiment we have never expressed. — Ed. Star. \