WARNINGS OF DANGER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11365, 7 May 1900, Page 7

WARNINGS OF DANGER.

■- ' [nf'-F. 0. EWIXGTON.} ' " 'the Year 1890 there has taken place ' 6 °S W Zealand a great political revolution • » Omental change in Government, It : : ' ° "nVpwhat silent, and therefore not much ' (i! . a" "Except in the labour strike at the "T f 1890 the din of which echoed in 1891, '" 7 «s but little noise so little that very •' , ever rubbed their eyes. But the moveWent on throughout the decade until : fJL utterly and absolutely transferred : i ical governing power from the " Haves" ■■■■L" Have-nots." The one person one tO ., " which reduced intelligence and culture row, ", Ul ,: U , ~ ■> ' political insignificance, and gave the Vt corner bar loafer the same political : ting power as the industrious, patriotic ■ Lea who pays the taxes and defends the lony; wbicli reduced the judge and Prime Sinister to the political level of the convicted criminal, the sober man to the drunk„d the thrifty to the pauper, the British 'to Chinese, the capitalist to carpet-baggers, lid the teacher to the level of the ignoraaß has culminated in such a vast and "rious political change as is scarcely real- ''■': seA ;ft will be realised some day. I hope Will not then be top late. '..In no other place in the- world have the ' masses got such political power, and 110 statesman or author of great eminence has i located it. It has deteriorated Parliament and public bodies, and induced public extravagance, political toadyism, class legis- "■ lation, . and Parliamentary subservience to Ministers. That great transference of political power I attracted very little attention, because people ' ye so absorbed in pleasure or inoncy-mak-fair and those few who noticed the movement, like that of a glacier, going forward ilofflv and surely with irresistible force, found I jjjjir warnings unheeded. At one stage this movement could have been guided, but the right men did not come forward, and now it is too late. Demos is master, and we never educated our master, hence our danger with •." ignorant incapable sailors manning the ship. ' An equally great social and economic movement is in progress now, and it is just as silent as the other. People disregard it because it is -silent, but silent forces are toe greatest; light, heat, dew, gravitation, ■ cohesion, and electricity are as powerful as . silent. ' This movement may carry us over Niagara. I allude to the way employers are hampered by law' and to the insidious and pernicious ■access with which trade unionists are do- ; minating Parliament, destroying freedom of % contract, and securing the passage of unjust laws to oppress non-unionists, and to coerce .them into unions. Owing to the hardships thus inflicted on non-unionists, and the in- . jury to trade caused by the compulsory Conciliation and Arbitration Act, the Employers' Association in the South of the colony, and the Industrial Association, are uniting to get the Act amended. , •■ The secretary of the Industrial Association, writing to the Wellington Employers' Association recently, said : "It is to be re- | membered, however, that the real battle takes r place before the Arbitration Court, and the experience of the Canterbury Employers' Association has led them, so I was informed by their secretary, to waste very little powdi:r and shot before the Conciliation Board, but to direct all their energy , to the Arbitration Court. This Association should therefore strive to make it known to all Wellington employers who are summoned to ippear before this court that the best re- , jul:s will follow to all concerned by the 'adoption of one consistent plan of action in every case. The other side is banded together, and it will only be by the adoption of such tactics, that victories, such as have ■ been recently' achieved by the employers in Christchurcb, will be repeated in other parts of the colony. " I have further to report that tfie solicitors ■'; in Christcliurcb, Messrs. Harper and Russell, 1 who have in their charge the action for retraining the Arbitration Court from grantjag preference to Unionists, have taken the % tecessary steps to bring the matter before the Supreme Court; but so far as our solicitor, Mr. Hislop, is aware, no definite date ' has been fixed for hearing the application for a writ of mandamus. Mr. Hislop is of opinion that nothing can be done in the meantime, that if the Court refuses the application, and it is taken to the Appeal Court, then the Association will be communicated with further."

Hence the worm has turned at last, and it may 'be that the Privy Council will be called upon to say whether it is legally justifiable in a British dominion to prevent an employer from buying the labour of a willing seller unless the seller first joins a trade union. • •

How grievous it is to think that the working classes, who only a few years ago were fighting for the right to combine, no sooner get that right than they become oppressors of each other. And what can bo said of those politicians who have passed such a harsh law as allows one section of workmen to get a legal right to prevent another section of their fellow-creatures from selling their labour until unionists have first sold theirs? Suppose Catholic butchers were not allowed to fell their meat until Presbyterian butchers had sold all theirs; what a commotion there would be? Hut working men are in a worse position. The disadvantaged butchers could salt their meat and have ope more chance of selling it, or of eating it themselves as a last resource ; but a working man's labour is, as economists remark, " the most perishable of all commodities— a lost day's worlds lost for ever,." His urgency to sell is greatest of all sellers, and sometimes he and his wife and children endure inconceivable suffering and anxiety in confcquence of his not selling bis labour. Hence the responsibility of those politicians who have lent all the weighty power of the law to prevent workmen from selling their labour to willing buyers is very great. Yes, the colony is receiving great injury. If ft man broke into a bank or a shop and stole money or goods, he would be sent to ■gwl. But the rich and the intelligent are standing by in cold blood, seeing poor men robbed; hut if they have no bowels of compassion for the poor, the day will come when the selfishness which has staked itself tor awhile on the poor with impunity will fasten on the rich, expecting the same impunity. It-will get it too if the poor turn the tables, and say: "Oh no, you did not heed my cry when" I was being despoiled of my sacred, inviolable, only commodity, my labour; now be d d." That great economist, Adam Smith, said: The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength' and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing his strength and dexterity in. what manner he thinks proper without injury to his neighbour is a plain Violation of this most sacred property. It J? a manifest encroachment upon the just llb «ty, both of the workman and of those who might be disposed to employ him." Some will say: "Well, why don't all workmen join unions? Some object to do •Mr cannot afford to pay entrance fees and subscriptions to fatten labour niislcadcrs w 'th, and why should they be compelled to M so? Why should class legislation give | gal power to unionists to starve non-union- »«! As one of the unionist officers here once publicly imprecated: "May nonunionists stand rooted, cap in band, behind unionists till they are bald-headed?" But I ask why? Do not the wives and Children of non-unionists need fond and MM Do not non-unionists pay taxes, W are they not as liable as unionists 0 >» called on to defend and die for Queen .*"« country? .j.** 1 us beware; there is danger ahead. *Rom the above-mentioned danger to an-fler--the State fixing wages and prices— *" a is only one step. That step is being :£"?•'■ Within the last few days some of we local printers and publishers'have been Im th 6 Conciliation Court. But if the ™ t() ?an fix the wages of printers, thereby 'VenMi 0 ! girls out of work ' WUilt is to pre- • or\V , ,n ? the wa B es of all other trades, m lees of all professions? And if it mM price of labour, why not fix also the •E>l. a( lvertiseinonts and of all other. c °ramodities? ■

-; '■ ■■ " to!^? lr '"P'atoi's pro some of tho most 1 i SB*? 9 { men, ignorant °* history, ' " ;i C i cconoDlic s.'oi' they would not ;•;'■: inTr legislation that has always proved, i mjmn will prove, disastrous, so long ■ V irnli™^, Mturfi remains unchanged by the . s°ittea rulo. All history proves what I said

in the Liberty Review, commenting on 'Liberty and Liberalism," namely, that the violation of natural and economic laws always brings ruin, and hits buck like- a boomerang. • >-'. ~ - The bounty on corn in the reign of George 11., intended to encourage- agriculture increased the price of corn and led to riots The assize of bread in the reign of Henry 111., for regulating prices, utterly failed. In the days of Edward 111, all schemes to regulate prices under a, penalty of "death and confiscation" were abortive. Henry AII. vented to encourage commerce and enacted laws against usury and trade abuses • but the laws were said to be "unreasonable and iniquitous, impossible to be executed and hurtful to trade." We find that some of the laws of Mary to encourage trade were repealed by Elizabeth because they "occasioned the decay of the woollen manufacture, and had ruined several towns." James I. had to annul other laws because tliev had extremely fettered every species of domestic industry." An Act of Edward 111. was mined to keep down the price of herringsbut it sent the price up. The Acts in the third and sixth years of Henry VIII. to regulate wages similarly failed. Similarly our Conciliation Act has failed, for whereas it was predicted (by its reputed author, Hon. W. P. Reeves, who lias merely, it is now discovered, manipulated an old Act of George IV., passed in 1824), that nearly all disputes would be settled by Conciliation Boards, without recourse to Arbitration Courts, both unionists and Industrial and Employers' Associations are unanimous in demanding the abolition of Conciliation Boards.

It behoves all people to watch this movement, which may issue in one of the worst forms of social and industrial slavery if we do not look out. " Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty I"