The Northern Advocate FRIDAY, SEPEMBER, 5, 1913. LABOUR AND INDUSTRY.

Northern Advocate, 5 September 1913, Page 4

The Northern Advocate FRIDAY, SEPEMBER, 5, 1913. LABOUR AND INDUSTRY.

Like all semi-political manifestoes it seems, from the precis telegraphed to us yesterday, that the annual report of the Employees' Federation strains for effect by overstating the case. "The open advocacy of lawlessness and disregard of legal and moral obligations by some of the Labour leaders is doing untold harm to the Dominion." This is the language of extravagance. To commence with, there is very grave reason to doubt whether, among the general body of employers of Labour, can be found any keener regard for legal and moral obligations than among the workers. Certainly the records of the Arbitration and Magistrate's Courts give no support for such a conclusion, and it can, we think, be said with some confidence that for every breach of a legal obligation by workmen a dozen or score of deliberate evasions by employers could be cited. Indeed it is not very long since the President of the Arbitration Court had some particularly caustic remarks to make about this matter, and referred to the very great scandal that existed in respect to breaches of awards by employers. It would have been wise, therefore, we think, if the Employers' Association had been a little less sweeping in its assertions, for not only is its commentary one-sided and therefore unjust, but the use of such terms in this connection as "untold harm to the Dominion" is merely suggestive of recklessness. What greater harm is done in New Zealand by the gasconade of the few irresponsible blatherskites amongst the leaders of Labour than is accomplished by individuals of similar type elsewhere? To talk about these people doing "untold injury" is sheer nonsense, for as a matter of fact the country, generally speaking, was never more prosperous than it is to-day, the profits of the larger employers of Labour were never greater than during the last few years, and nowhere in the world is the average worker better off than in New Zealand. To take seriously this bogey of "untold injury" is to concede to the advocates of revolutionary change an importance and influence they decidedly do not possess and to under-rate the plain, solid sense of the great bulk of the people. That, however, the employers are right when they refer to the existence among the wage-earners of a belief that the interests of employ-

lers and Labour are antagonistic, can scarcely be doubted. This belief is very widely held and always has been. Unfortunately the blame for this, if any there be, is not wholly on one side, for it is only sufficient to possess a superficial knowledge of the evolution of modern capital and industry in order to realise why this is the case. Anyone familiar with the history of the mercantile marine, for instance, or of mining or the textile manufacturing industries, will understand the genesis of a sentiment now firmly implanted in the minds of a great portion of the industrial army. In this country, where the conditions are so* vastly different to those of other lands, it is a little difficult to understand the reasons that have kept alive the doctrine of an inherent antagonism between Capital and Labour. The explanation is probably to be found in one great weakness of modern society, insisted upon by every economist of the day, that the rewards of the world are too often in inverse ratio to social service or usefulness. It seems hopeless to tell Labouor that it is getting a square deal and should be content when at the same time there parades before the public gaze innumerable instances of people who never do a day's useful work in a year, enjoying all the advantages of leisure and wealth. In the meantime, of course, the unrest among the wage-earners of every country on earth is growing so acute that it appears likely to lead to general chaos. Indeed we are in the midst of a great economic revolution, and though it is scarcely profitable to speculate upon the ultimate end of this, we are moving with something akin to rapidity towards the time when industry will either have to be established upon a new basis or perish altogether.