LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8360, 13 September 1890, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

••Let me have audience for a word or two." —Shaketpcrt. i have striven very hard during the last few days to get out even from the atmosphere of strikes. I have not gone down to the wharf, thereby avoiding the sight of the barricades, and when I met a friend I never once introduced strikes as a topic of conversation. It was all in vain - At home wo ran out of coal, and my wife said that she was told none could be got. I had the prospect in cold ami showery weather of having no lire. When we did get a small supply of fuel, the young gentleman who brought it confessed to only being an " amateur carter." and his work was certainly done in an amateurish way. Then 1 was continually being met with such announcements as, "Broad up a halfpenny today.' "Butchers meat is to be up a penny to-morrow," until 1 began to think whether life was worth living. I had not tyrannised over labour. I had not mound any toiling son ot Adam to the dust. Why should the strikers strike me? And, of course, in that humour a man is likely to come to the conclusion that tho tactics of the whole atlair were a blunder from the beginning.

But even in the country, I found 1 could not avoid the strike. At an early hour on the Sunday morning, on a quiet country road, I met a young follow who had been earning money on the wharf, doing the work which the strikers had thrown up. He was coming in again on Monday. I saw another man whose chief employment for some years past has been 'umdigging. He put the situation thus : "I and others who have been doing the jumdigging for some years past —out in the open in all weathers, from daylight to dark, and spending the evening in scraping gum —intend to have a turn in more comfortable billets. We will do the eight hours' business, with high pay for overtime : we intend to enjoy the luxuries of town life. Turn and turn about is fair play, and those chaps who have thrown up their situations san just have a year or two of gumdigging, ml .-co how .that will suit them." 1

returned to town thinking that it this was the ."oil of spirit in which the strike was reyarded in the country, then the battle was lost, so far as the strikers were concerned.

I can easily understand a minister of the Gospel sympathising to some extent with the strikers, but when 1 read the downright dynamite harangues of the Messrs. Birch and Aldridge, going far beyond what; the strikers claimed, and advocating revolution, 1 wondered whether they had read the text. " Blessed, are the pacemakers." ,1 would be disposed severely to condemn those speeches for this mischievous incitements, were it not that 1 recollect they are probably harmless by their downright folly. When the strikers, some of whom hud thrown up situations of t'l'J a month and found, heard themselves addressed as men who had been kept "on the verge of starvation'' by tyrannical masters, they must have been struck with the farcical absurdity of the whole situation.

Humbly and diffidently I would make a suggestion to all members of unions, and that is, that a strike should never be determined upon without a vote, by ballot or otherwise, of all the members. When the members of a union elect a president and a secretary, surely they do not mean to give them the power at any time to throw them out of employment, and change their destiny and their welfare for life. More than that, when a man joins a union he surely does not mean to give this enormous power into the hands of some other man, whom he never saw or heard of, and who resides in another country. Another suggestion I may venture to make. I am not quite sure about female suffrage in general, but I am quite .-lire it would be advantageous here. The wife of every unionist should have a vote on the question of strike or no strike For a single man, bound to no particular place, and having no one dependent upon him for support, to throw up his situation, and to take a few weeks' holiday, is a small matter, but the position is very different with a man with a vriiv and family. Therefore, by all means let the unions show the way, by the introduction of the married woman's franchise.

A correspondent whom I never would suspect of facetiousness writes giving; me some electioneering intelligence, and as we will soon be in the thick of that struggle, I mi) not entitled to withhold it from my reader.--. He says that -Mr. John Abbott, the Rev. Mr. Birch, and Mr. A. C'onnell are likely to be candidate.-' for Auckland L'ity at the general election. Here the electors- have, at all events, the three first letter? of the alphabet. I could not conscientiously advise all other candidates to withdraw in favour of the above-mentioned gentlemen, because that would deprive us of much fun that we might otherwise enjoy. But if these gentlemen were placed at the top of the poll, as no doubt they would be, a reproach which hitherto has rested un Auckland would be wiped away. It has been asserted that Auckland does not send orators. That would be said no longer. The House would be struck with wonder and amazement when they commenced proceedings at Wellington. It would be dangerous to begin a recitation of twenty verses or even sir about the stars, or anything else; and as for 'opes Ode and Longfellow's " Psalm of Life.'' surely even members of Parliament know them by heart. There is always a danger of a count out in such cases. "The Tactician," as we all know, could manage the House just as he liked ; while the liev. Mr. Birch, on social and labour topics, would give a tone to the debates which they have not hitherto had.

Mr. \V. E. Sadler is still to the fore with an occa.-ional criticism. In last Saturday's paper 1 raised the question whether all this stir among classes who in the main were silent was not in part at least the consequence of the increased bulk which the good things of this world have in all eyes. Mr. Sadler makes the sad mistake of thinking' that I undervalue all thought and contern for a future life. Addressing the editor of the HkicALD, lie says : —

Sin,— Your clever correspondent "Mercutio'' has gone out of his way to offend some of the Christians. His first paragraphs of Saturday appeared a designed, direct thrust at Christianity. There seemed to in'- to be something queer, outre, about his exhortation. Was he hankering after originality ■'. Dangerous ever ! If.- intimates that m icure we ought to —should —" mind '•'ithly things and give up thinking about heaven and hell. The thin- is this: The free lurches in Great Britain have lately concluded that they hitherto have been too remiss in attending to the secular affairs— f'*l"'i Uiy the political—of the people, and iii.-.. nan arisen to assert that it becomes «•', ~'hV s !"• I"' , ',l ,;u ' more for the future loo'; 1 ; v ,1 " 1 "- duty in this; and, besides to .V."" !'."'' ; '"'- the l>uorand attending for ',', vv " rkl "" ln< '"> they are even providing etc l ; i'" ay youths various athletic sports, filings , trutll ..!> '" "''ler to efficient use world'v, "''"'l'lmty, and «olid joy in this *nd think- ;" Sl , c for " the wll(1 to come," "'"* -bout the eternal spirit-world,

Jidn i x J7V ,7 fory years ing man on Sa Urnhv "\ d ' workwas in th, crl. t "\, ,n a,'pie," and it he will listen to it,. E ; IC "' JiUtlf and Communistic d Lui- ! ° non senso into his ears by so,, ' „ ,V Was P onred by a long way. t X^,|K i a hole ' by a long way. U'i, , H , V" a hole ' well-fed, well-dresse,! Cd Upon th ,° with his wen ;fi iied .unS ;;I irchS 11 posing as "the crushed viet;T t?, ' bloated capitalist," living v V e 1 " 1 ' C verge of starvation with the workhn * view, and locked out from llhoffi" (XS lie can have for going on it) T i , consumedly. The merry-hearted ' « they marched along, looked upon the march out as a picnic. As they passed [he enumerator in Upper Queen-street thov would have their little joke. The " knobs'' were particularly anxious to be put down as 'gentleman bootmakers," while the would listen to nothing else than being counted in as "gum 0 merChants. The parson was right; the workuigman was having his innings at the wickets, but the worst of it "was it only ended in his being "stumped" ldtt barricade was an "insult" to the work-

ingman, "put them on their honour," .and as a working man among working men, I frankly and unreservedly acknowledge the law and order which has boon maintained by them in Auckland, bub look at tho violence elsewhere, and which has occurred in Napier, Wellington, Lyttelton, Dunedin, Sydney, Brisbane, done on bohalf of Unionism, and regarding which nob ,i single word of deprecation or disapproval has been wrung from the lips or pen of some of the exponents of Honour. The barricade was an "insult," not to the law-abiding artizan, bub to those who desired to go to that wharf and hoot and intimidate men. Every constable who walks our streets with his pair of handcuffs in his belt and his baton in his pocket is an " insult" to the hoodlum and larrikin— ' a standing boycott.and the crater orators might with as much reason have pointed to the Government model lodging-house at the foot of Mount Eden, with its geological laboratory, as an "insult" to the peaceable, honest working men of Auckland. Wishing well to my order, I hope working men will lay to heart the bitter lesson they have learned by recent events, and that capitalists also will take heed that with the wealth come duties and obligations to the men who build up their fortunes, for "we arc all bound together in the bundle of Life." I hate the tyranny of Capital with all my soul,and I hate the tyranny of Labour " with the hobnailed boot thrown in," equally as heartily. The lesson of the Revolt of Labour is, that some of the syndicates and trusts of capital which have existed in the Past were dangerous to the welfare of the State, and should have been dealt with as such by legislation. Labour has but imitated Capital's bad example. What is present strike, in its turn, but a Labour Trust—a "corner" in the labour market —and therefore like the soulless combinations of capital of old, a gigantic conspiracy against the Australasian commonwealth

One of the Union pickets, an ingenious and intelligent fellow, bailed mo up during tho past week, and endeavoured to convince mo, from a theological poiut of view, that the strike and boycott were right. As to the boycott, he claimed that Paul's injunction, "let him Anathema Maranatha," was an apostolic boycott, and then he drifted into the Epistle to Timothy, " Withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly (non-Union) and not after the tradition which he received of us (the Union). Fur yourselves know how ye ought to follow us, for we behaved ourselves nob disorderly amongst you." Then lie went into the question of " blacklegs," and quoted from Matthew as to the duty of the picket to such an one:"If he will not hear thee, then

ake with thee one or two more (Union dele-

gates), that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established ; and it he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the (Union), but if he neglect to hear the (Union) let him be unto thee as a heathen

man ami a publican." I endeavoured to prove to him that '"the divine Carpenter*' was Free Labour, which he admitted, but claimed the Twelve Apostles as the first Union, which I conceded " without prejudice." Then 1 showed him that in Titus i. 7, the parson was to be " no striker," and in Revelation xiii. Hi, that boycotting was the invention of the devil, "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and.bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads : and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the

number of his name." Jack sheered oil'at the quotation from the Apocalypse, and said, " I'll see you another day, 'old man,' but I must go and look after that Northern Company's ' blackleg ' round the corner J"

It is poor policy to pour water on drowned rats, and therefore I propose to say as little about " the scene in the Tabernacle ' as possible. Of the Friend of the Blind, I do so more in sorrow than in anger, for he has accomplished some tangible good in this city which no man can gainsay, but on Sunday evening he surpassed all his

former efforts, for he opened the eyes of the blind, and caused the lame to walk, —as one fellow with a peg-leg stumper! out of the Tabernacle, saying "it only wanted a comic song to finish up." Great Schott ! no, not a comic song—say " Stunted Mother," or "Where is My ' Wandering' Boy To-night?" I know that "John did it," but all the same I have a sneaking regard for John—for in my journeyings in . d out ■>•>.,- - all sorts and con-

ditions of it .1 i iii._ ..».i well the numberless evidence? of his kindly spirit—"the lives that ho ha? saved"—the wealth of benevolence lying beneath that calm immobile exterior—and which has been rewarded

(for the Divine Promise is as enduring as the "sidereal heavens") by having poured back into his own bosom for that which he had given, in some cases thirty, and even sixty fold. Auckland can well spare many another citizen far better than she can John Abbott.

Some people have a peculiar notion of honour, but I should imagine that the parson who took for his text, la>t Sunday evening, " Honour all man," and then slanged the Auckland merchants, was considerably mixed up on the business. It is honourable for men to obey King Millar I. (of unhappy memory) whom they have never seen, and it is not (/('.-(honourable for them to abandon the service and property of masters who, in many cases, had given them work for 20 years, and kept them on (when the Unions were treading the aged and weak underfoot)and meant to keep them till their dying day. It is honourable for a man to desert a

master, though that man may have grown grey in his service, his children also in that service to succeed him, and without a single grievance or complaint abandon him, to be ruined at the bidding of a trades' Union. Saith the clerical demagogue " Yes ! it is trie assertion of a great principle !" and .his muddled up notion of honour may bo titly described in the lines— His honour rooted, in dishonour stood, Ami faith, unfaithful, kept him falsely true.

Out upon such honour, for I never want it in life, .and assuredly I shall never want it in death. And Addison must have had such public teachers in his mind's eye when he .raid —

lloninr't a fine imaginary notion, That lir.iws in raw anil inexperienced men To real mischief, while they hunt a shadow.

While the Auckland merchants were being slandered last Sunday evening, as neither thinking nor caring about the workingman, I could not help recalling what had been done on the previous evening, within my own knowledge, by an Auckland merchant, of whom I may say

I've scanned the actions of his daily life, IVi'h all the industrious malice of a foe

id nothing meets mine eyes but deeds of honour.

His cart had been left in the dirt by his employee, at the ukase of King Millar, though

in health and in sickness that servant had been kept for 15 long years. Last Saturday night, though the man was on strike, the merchant remembered the sorrowful wife and the little ones wanting bread, and ho said to me though "it is expecting too much from human nature to think that I will give him his wages on Saturday night, I saw to it that his wife and children did not want, and sent his wages up to her." These are the employers who are just beginning to " let their servants come to the door mat or mayhap enter the hall of their villas to sp'jak to them !"

The Socialistic Millennium which was

limned out, "when the workmen will enter the house of his employer (the employer's house not being his ' castle'), and sit flown at the table, and treat him simply as an equal ana a brother man," will come about when " the land grows wooden nutmegs and the birds sing the ' Star-spangled Banner,' but not till then," and the man who makes his pulpit and his churchwith the " best intentions" which macadamise the road to Sheol —the stage on which to

display Socialistic crazes, and the battleground of Blind Faddists, will have to be told with no uncertain sound :

'Tis not enough to draw forms fair and lovely, A hearty holiness must crown the work, As a gold cross the minster dome, and show, Like that instonement of divinity, That the whole building doth belong to God. The parson who talked about the colonists having no backbone, and " thanked God that he was an Englishman, and not a colonial," was told at the time that when the supreme moment came he would find that the colonists had sufficient backbone to satisfy even him. That time has now come !

I like people who are sticklers for accuracy in newspaper reports, because there arc

some folk " whoso geese are all swans till you see them." Pastor Birch told the Tabernacle people when they bogan to get restive under his eccentricities and semi-social-cum-political-cum-holiness crazes, that if they did not like his style they could clear out, or, failing that, then he could go back to the 5000 admirers in tho Free Trade Hall, Manchester, who would gladly welcome him again. In my multifarious reading tho other day, I came across the Christian Herald and Signs of Our Times, of July 10, ISB9, which gives the obituary notice of Mr. Birch's evangelistic services in Manchester. As I desire to be accurate in this report, 1 reprint the paragraph :— " Owing to the, lack of adequate .support, the long scries of Sunday services which Mr. Birch has conducted in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, closed on Sunday, Juno 30. This service was the 843 rd which was held in the hall, in connection with Mr. Birch's gratuitous evangelical work." Only that and nothing more, truly a sign of the times ! Read " between the lines," I take it that when services which have been held 84.'5 times, and conducted gratuitously, aro closed " for want of adequate support," it means that in Manchester, as in Auckland, there was "a rift in the lute," only that in Auckland it is not a rift, but a regular " split," if indeed the lute itself lias nob been " burst up." It was the 5000—always 5000—of tho proletariat of Manchester, with, I presume, a sprinkling of his Manchester burglars thrown in, whom like another Moses, he led into tho Promised Land of the Earl of Ellesmere, "yet, who never plucked a single flower, for they were on their honour," and 1 will be bound to ay never turned over a new leaf!

I saw on a telegraph post the other day a placard conveying the cheerful intimation that as in the days of the first French Revolution, tho heads of the Auckland aristocrats might yet be tossed like footballs into the gutters and their skins used to bind Bellamy's " Looking "Backward." The fizzling out of a badly conceived, badly managed, strike among the lumpers, carters, &c, of our city, shows that somebody "lost his head," but it was not one of the Auckland aristocrats, and gives one the impression that the Great Panjandrum in the South, who said to his servants, " Go, and they goeth," hadn't got a head to lose, but simply " a wart with hair on't."

I notice that a telegram was read at the Trades and Labour Council from Mr. Millar, of Dunedin, stating that the Maritime Council was " as firm as the ' Rock of Ages.'"' In all probability the telegram has got muddled up in transmission, for the theological lore of the " lightning jerkers'' is somewhat limited. Possibly, what the head of the Maritime Council meant to say was that they had got down to bed-rock— in fact, speaking from a Millarian point of view, were on the " Old Red Sandstone.' 1

It is very rough on the part of the Ogden Company to commence their dramatic season in aid of the strike fund with Tempted, or the Prodigal." The Prodi-

cal forsooth ! There's no mistake somebody will have to eat husks, but, it's not the Union Company will gush on anybody's neck, least of all " kill the fatted calf " on the Prodigal's return.

A correspondent aske me if there is any chance for an opening on a pamphlet which he could write, entitled " Looking Backward " from a storeman or carters' point of view. I think not, for although many of them will be looking backward at their last situations, a goodly number will curse themselves that they did not look forward. Mercctio.