A MISTAKEN FEDERATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8358, 11 September 1890, Page 3

A MISTAKEN FEDERATION.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, The unhappy struggle now being waged between Labour and Capital, or rather between employers and employed, has revealed the existence of a very grave peril hitherto unthought of. New Zealand is at present the battlefield on which the quarrels of foreigners are being fought out. Henceforth, if things remain as they now are, we are to live in constant dread of industrial wars, notarising from troubles within the colony, but from the dissensions between different classes in Great Britain, in the United States, or in other colonies. This is an involuntary federation of the most dangerous character. It is a federation in which the people of New Zealand can have no representation. It will be governed by influences which we cannot control. The exercise of its power cannot advance our interests, but may overwhelm all classes of colonists in hopeless disaster. The colony is rapidly becoming the property of absentee proprietors, who pay little or nothing to the taxation under which we groan. The most recent illustration of this truth is found in the fact that three and a-half millions of English capital has been used to purchase the globo assets of the Bank of New Zealand. All the bondholders are foreigners, so are all the debenture-holders of the great financial institutions, *?o are these institutions themselves, so . are the great land companies, and, in addition, nearly nine millions of property is owned privately in New Zealand by absentee landlords. If, then, the capitalist owners of the colony are foreigners, and, in addition, the labouring classes are to obey the orders of foreigners, - and come out at a word from London, or Melbourne, or Chicago- on a quarrel with which we, as a people, nave nothing to do, all others are intruders here, ana ought to go to some land where they will have a vested right in their own country, and settle their own differences, and those only, among themselves. The motto we must adopt is, "New Zealand for New Zealanders." Let absent capitalists and propertyowners pay their fair share of taxation, and let us shut out the quarrels which do not concern us. By so doing we shall do far more to better the cause of labour and the security of capital than by cutting each others throats and bringing ruin and want upon . helpless and unoffending people. Let us work out in New Zealand a practical solution of these labour troubles, and we shall deserve honor from all men. The only inevitable results of the present strike are want, enforced idleness, and hunger. A new Parliament will in two months be elected. Let the Governor be petitioned to call that Parliament together immediately, to deal with this great question of labour and capital, so as to heal the wounds left by the strife now raging, and to avert the possibility of any other industrial war being forced upon us from without. — am, &c., W. L. Rees. September 10,1890.