THE PROPOSED MASTER AND SERVANT’S ACT.

New Zealander, Volume 12, Issue 1027, 20 February 1856, Page 3

THE PROPOSED MASTER AND SERVANT’S ACT.

io me editor 01 tne i\ew /.ealander. Sin, —If the member who introduced the Act so named had called it the Slave Act, he would have named it correctly. lie said it was compiled from similar Acts at home and in the Aus ralian Colonies ; but neither Home nor Colonial Slave Acts ought to be suitable for the boasted free Colony of Ne>» Zealand. In the old country thousands live and die servants, and are obliged to obey laws, administered by interested parties, (the employer-class); and even in the making of these laws the masses have no voice ; while in the Australian Colonics the newly-fledged aristocracy, forgtting their own otigin, have striven to widen the gap between themselves and their less fortunate brethren, by stringent and penal acts. But New Zealand has never been a penal settlement; her working men have the powei to make just laws; and it is their fault if they submit to such progress specimens ns this. Could not the records of the Canadas, or some of the Northern of the United States, have provided something fitter for us than the laws of a penal settlement—something equitable for both parties, the employers and employed? After such an Act has passed into la«;, we may expect to see advertisements like the following: TO ARRIVE, PER « CASHMHRE," 200 STOUT ABLE-BODIED LABOURERS, All under Bond for years. May be engaged on application to the undersigned. N.B.—The ndvertiscr expects a regular and continuous supply, at moderate prices. Sir, I would ask whether th's is really a free countiy ? N. B.—l am sorry my old mate, "Tiif. CurlyHRAI>ED Ploughhoy,'' should have so soo7i forgott n " aul 1 acquaintance," and " chimed in" with this tyrannical Hill. A PLOUonnOY. «.