UNIONS AND UNIONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12587, 23 August 1901, Page 4

UNIONS AND UNIONS.

We thought that we Shad made it sufficiently plain that we have not the •least objection to formers oombindng for the protection of their own interests; but it seems that some of our correspondents are still under the impression 'that we axe anxious to prevent the country people taking part in any political or industrial 'organisation. Nothing could bo.■'further from the truth. We have repeatedly urged 'that the farmers should take a mora active interest in public affairs, and that they should not leave the business of the country to be managed by men who have little practical acquaintance with the requirements of the rural portion of 'the community. The farmers, as %ve showed the other day, have had little cause for complaint while the present Government has been in office, but they owe their good fortune rather to the wise policy ■initiated by Mr Ballance and carried on by Mr Seddon than to any effort of their own. We should be delighted to see them forming unions all over the country if the objects of the movement were clearly defined and frankly expressed. But we suspect the sincerity of the promoters of the Farmers' Union because they have never, so far as we have been able to see, taken the .publicinto their confidence. The pamphlet they published a few weeks ago contains aimmber of resolutions which have been passed by the various "provincial conferences," bub these, we are told, are subject to "revision or alteration by the Colonial Council," and it is impossible to say where the " objects and platform" of the Union reailly begin. It is, however, a little significant to find another pamphlet coming from the same source strongly advocating the institution of freetrade and the repeal of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. There is no evidence to show that this is issued with the authority of the Farmers' Union, but in many respects the two publications are so much alike that it is difficult to resist the conclusion that they have proceeded from the same inspiration. The Union confesses to being ip, favour cf abolishing taxation that is designed to "bolster up industries," and that is equal, of course, to saying that it has no sympathy with the efforts that have been mads by the [Legislature to alleviate the condition of the workers. If the protective duties were removed, there would ba no rocan for conciliation and arbitration; wages and conditions of labour, as well as pricE-s, would be settled by the inexorable forc3 of foreign competition. But if the farmea's imagine that Protection and Trade Unions are the cause of all their troubles they have a perfect right to set about their abolition without a moment's delay. All we have asked from the first is that their friends, instead of drawing them into a party organisation under the guise of an industrial union, should honestly disclose the purposes for which they are asrked to combine.