The New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 1902.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11855, 6 January 1902, Page 4

The New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 1902.

Having failed to smother the Farmers' Unions by their frowns the Seddon Administration is approaching them . with the genial smile which distinguishes the politician seeking after votes. Sir Joseph Ward has told the farmers of Southland at Otautau that he " welcomes" the organisation which his chief so recently banned 'with book and bell. He has assured that Codlin is, was and always will be their friend. He has narrated for the thousandth time the postal' reductions and railway reductions which made a solitary splash at the close of last century but still loom so largely because unique in the history of the Seddon Administration. He has kindly pointed out to these South Island farmers that even the North Island is entitled to an occasional railway. He advises them to hold their wool as a remedy for low prices. He tells them, in short, the old, old story, excepting that he admits unreservedly that farmers come under the Workers' Compensation Act, a liability which we have repeatedly asserted and which Mr. Seddon has as repeatedly denied, but which no man who intelligently reads the Act can question, and which Sir Joseph Ward cleverly takes for granted but justifies by vague reference to that mysterious —common law. The Wardian explanation of the effect upon the farmers of the Workers' Compensation Act is a very instance of the Machiavellian tactics of the Government. We have another instance of the same shifty habits of thought in the local partisan accusation that because we protest against necessary North Island railway construction being blocked while hundreds of thousands of pounds are being recklessly squandered on South Island works we are therefore advocating wild and extravagant expenditures. In regard to workers' compensation, the present Act renders the farmer specifically liable to make compensation for any and <*very accident which may occur among his ' employees, whether it was by his contributory negligence or not. Under common law he was only liable for accidents occurring to his employees by his own contributory negligence. Moreover, under the Act, compensatory claims which may have arisen wholly and solely through the negligence of the employee take precedence of mortgage. It is all very well for Sir Joseph Ward to dilate upon the smalluess of the premium required for insurance against the operations of the Act, but this does not solve the difficulties attending the employment of casual labour nor justify him in cloaking the establishment of a new liability by the pretence that it .existed under common law. To have a kindly thought for human suffering is well, and none have kindlier _ hearts than our farming community. But for a parliament, a government, a people, to prate about kindliness and then to throw the burden of it upon others is a different matter. Sir Joseph Ward and his colleagues had not the courage to place upon the public levenues the burden of the accidentcompensation of which they talk so feelingly. The wicked employer must pay for this sensitiveness of i our lawmakers. However careful a farmer may be, however watchful he may be, lie and he alone must compensate" for any carelessnesscaused accident, the consequences of which move our modern humanitarians with pity for everybody but the innocent, and with energy for everything excepting putting their hands into their own pockets. " Commonlaw," quoth Sir Joseph ! But common law was inspired by justice, not by a vicarious and hypocritical mercifulness. It condemned the guilty to pay ; it left the careless to suffer ; we compel the farmer, or any other employer, to pay for . the guilty, to. suffer for the careless, and having

thus relieved our feelings welhank God that, we are not as ouriorefathers were. '■> ', „ \ ' ' Upon our borrowings, whicl Sir Joseph declares to have been scat ell expended that we shall probabl go on borrowing still, there is an e'ual confusion. No business man wfyld borrow, money at present to Mid the ' white elephant railways i>w :j being constructed in the South'sland. Any business man would ha© long ago borrowed enough to complete the North Island Main Trim and to . push on the North of Aucl* land Extension. For the latter i about the most profitable line in thi colony and promises to become stil. more profitable as the vast area oi fertile country it approaches is tapped, while - the former is im--1 perative in order to give their due value to lines which run to nowhere until the connection is made. Daily, steamers are necessary to carry on the traffic between Onehunga and New Plymouth, much of which traffic would be diverted to the Auckland-Wellington railway the very day it opened, while the local and settlement traffic would soon be the largest in either island. Yet Sir Joseph speaks almost apologetically to these South Island farmers about the necessity for railway expenditures in the North ; they are evidently accustomed to another tone from members of the Administration. He is more at home when he advises the holding of wool, but—why does he hold his tongue on the pdssibility of a reciprocity with the United States, :by which our wool might obtain preferential admission, to the great j advantage of the farmers of both North and South I The Australian market is closed to our oats and maize and produce. Africa does not want wool at all, and Great Britain is being flooded with this great staple, largely from Argentina. To hold our wool is a speculator's scheme, difficult of attainment and, doubtful of result. To open a new market for it is the business of statesmen, and there is only one market which may possibly relieve us, that of the United States. The farmers of the colony should consider, what they may be losing by the disinclination of the Government to make any friendly overtures to Washington. For in this, as in all other unjust lawmaking and unwise policy, it is the farmer who suffers most. Perception of this is the reason why the Seddon Administration first attempted to suppress and now seek to conciliate and delude the Farmers' Unions.