THE WAIL OF THE VICTORIAN MANUFACTURER.

North Otago Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 7267, 15 October 1891, Page 3

THE WAIL OF THE VICTORIAN MANUFACTURER.

I fl " I am my own boss, nm I '(" said a well-known principal quito recently. •• My own boss ? Who told you so ? Not myself, I am sure ; for if I, as a Victorian manufacturer, were to open my heart of hearts to you or anybody else, and divulge tho sad and solemn truth, I should say that I am not my own boss, and even the boss of my own shop, Tho shop isn't mine, it's the men's. If 1 don't do just aa they wish, if I don't pay tho wages they demand, I am threatened with a deputation, and if this is not effectual I am cruelly menaced with visions of the Trades Hall. And mark you the irony of the situation Don't I find the cheque each week end to p.iy the men, anil dosen't a certain part of that cheque go to support my chief enemy on tho top of tho hill ? Doesn't this lattor rulo the men ? and as tho men rule me, doesn't tho Trades Hall practically rule me ? It regulates what wages I shall pay and what hours I shall work, and thus both directly and indirectly governs what profits I shall mako or. whether I shall make any at all. For my goods I luvo to take what the best buyer will givo me, which is oftentimes less than what it costs me to make up. And yet I havo to live, and have to pay the operatives a constant rate of wages whether the soiling price of my goods is 5, 10, or oven 20 per cent less than it was. The Trades Hall don't yet go to the buyor and attempt to intimidate him into paying a higher price for the article, yet they come fast enough to me when I make any attompt to regulate the wages by the returns. The general tendency of tho competition which now exists leads to general reduction in the value of all manufactured goods, yet the wages and hours, as governed by the Trades Hall, are never supposed to vary." — " VVhoro do I come in ? Yes. Where do I come in ? That's what I want to know. Why, even the Government are against us. Doesn't the inspector come leisurely strolling into my promises, and in an agreeable votco inquires ; ' Has that lad got his certiOcato V or worse still : ' Whero is your 'certificated ongino driver?' And haven't I then to make a polite obeisance, and reply in honoyed tones that both the ouo and tho other can be produced, or else stand tho chance of having to find another chequo or else fail. It's a very great pity that we alters can't start a

trades hall of our own. We could live then. We can't now," — Australian Ironmonger.