"THE WAGES QUESTION."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7657, 7 June 1886, Page 5

"THE WAGES QUESTION."

Last evening Mr. George Aldridge delivered a lecture in the Opera House, on "The Wages Question." He said, by way of preface, that he was not in the habit of going outside the topics which might be fitly dealt with on a Sunday evening ; but the Bible, in its teachings, was concerned not only with man's spiritual condition and his future, but with his physical and social condition and present welfare. That being so, he took up every question referred to in its pages, and, by way of basis for his remarks on "The Wages Question," would quote a passage from Deuteronomy, "Thou shalt not oppress a hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates." He said the one great conflict which was looming all over the world was that between Labour and Capital for the redistribution of wealth. Auckland was only on the fringe of the Labour movement, which had culminated in bloodshed in Amerioa and in Belgium, Within the past generation England had trebled, France quadrupled, and America sextupled the national wealth. In America every day the sun set the nation was four million dollars richer than in the morning, yet even there, as in the Old World, competition was getting keener, work scarcer, and the remuneration diminishing—the rich were getting richer and the poor poorer. An American millionaire being asked why ho did not build a palace like Vanderbuilt, said, " Do you think I am going to put up a place where the hungry crowds can find me when the storm bursts ?" He was not a politician, but he maintained that the true doctrine of the wages question was that the labourer should have a fair proportion of the fruits of his labour. Men looked to the nationalisation of the land as a panacea for all their ills, but he did not think it would realise their full expectationsgreed and selfishness would still manifest themselves, and operate as hitherto. He enjoined upon his hearers to conform their business dealings to the spirit and teaching of the Bible, which counselled dealing mercifully with the poor, and giving all things just and equal. By so doing they would escape the denunciations of the prophets and the vengeance of a just God, who considered the cry of the oppressed, and in His own good time would punish the oppressor.