THE New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 1890.

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 8965, 16 April 1890, Page 4

THE New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY).

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 1890.

f FOB DISHED DAILY). fVith which aft incorporated the WeHinyi-" Independent, established ISIS, and the Nev Zealander.

BIGHTS AND i BBXTILEGES. 1 i

One of last February s issues of the Economist has a shrewdly-conceived md well thought out article upon the action of the miners of Great Britain to eight hours’ labour a day one of .the laws of the land. The Economist points out that, admitting the great desirable ness of a fixed and reasonable period of labour for men engaged in such an arduous occupation as mining for minerals, yet they were trying a risky experiment in appealing to Parliament, inasmuch that the action on their part was a voluntary surrender of their rights and privileges to fix the term of their own labour themselves. They surrender their independence to the nation at large, and, by placing themselves unreservedly in the hands of Parliament. become mere dependents prepared to subject their free will to Parliamentary dictum. This would not have been thought of even twenty years ago, so punctilious was the average Briton as to his sole right to determine the limit of Lis day’s work—and even in the present day this feeling very largely prevails as stray advices from the Old Country from time to time set forth. How inadvisable and inexpedient it is for any kind of labour to seek Parliamentary arbitration as to its daily term is one

of the points of the Economist’s article. For Parliament being the representation of every class of the community, and not of one in particular, would, if the matter of fixing hours of work for the occupations of the country were committed to it unreservedly, be sure to study the collective interest, and not that of any particular trade. What was best for the whole would be thrashed out, and not consideration for a comparative few. To quote our authority : It would entirely justify Parliament not only in fixing a nine or ten hours day, which the miners probably think impossible, but in fixing a six hours day _ for reasons of philanthropy, which is not impossible at all. Half the philanthropists in Parliament would reduce wages it they could thereby increase civilisation ; less hours would be adopted, and both hours and wages may one day be reduced, with the object of giving more men employment, and so alleviating the difficulty of finding work. We cannot think them wise in their own interests in giving up their present unassailable position that they have a right as freemen to work as long as they please, and declaring,-instead, that they are in a way the industrial servants of the State. If they are they must obey orders, and they will soon find that the logical step from the State regulating hours is for the State to regulate wages,. which the State, if ever it does, will do, not in their interests, but in the interests of the consumers of coal, who, considered as voters, exceed their own numbers by some twenty to one. This is putting the matter iu a nutshell, and what applies to the miners as a class applies to any other body of operatives, and if the argument is applicable in the Mother Country it is equally so in any of her off shoots. The question raised is apposite to New Zealand just now, because there is a growing inclination, in a few quarters, to make Parliament sole arbitrator in the hours of labour, and in other questions, peculiar to the people, and which ought to be settled by themselves outside Parliament. Some people would, if they could, convert Parliament into a huge bureau to regulate the social life of the people by the rule of thumb,whereas efforts, if the outcome of wisdom, should be in an entirely opposite direction : To decentralise as much as possible, and remove from Parliament every trace of what is colloquially termed the parish vestry business. There is too much pettiness by far about Parliament as it iSj and it would becoana ten times worse in that respect if regulating hours of labour for trades, and possibly filing rates of wages, became part of its duties. Already an effort has been made to introduce an Bight Hours Labour Bill to Parliament, and will be made again if the people do not recognise the direction in which their best interests lie—to strictly reserve to themselves, free of Parliamentary trammel, the right to define the time of their own day’s work. The necessity, if it ever existed, of an appeal to Parliament in matters of the kind is lessening every year with the growth of the Trade and Labour Unions system. It is the province of the Unions to regulate such things, and not Parliament, and the members of unions will be purblind indeed if they do not jealously reserve to themselves the sole right of sucli private legislation. There is not a shadow of excuse, nowadays, for such appeals to Parliament. The Federated Union is, as it stands now, a power in the land for much good or much evil, just according as its affairs are conducted. It will bo a more potent factor still in the internal administration of the country’s affairs a twelvemonth hence, and under wise and moderate direction every year will witness accession to its strength. What hours a day’s work shall consist of has been pretty well decided here by the unwritten law of public opinion, and the wages question has . been partially decided by the Unions. Indeed, we may say that Unions dominate in the majority of trades and control the rate of wages as well as other matters, and Parliamentary interference would become a subject for derision if it were attempted to apply it. We believe we may say that occasion for such comments as are contained in the Economist’s article is among the most unlikely things to happen here. A tribunal is growing up outside of Parliament to which a variety of trade and commercial matters will be submitted for arbitration in a year or two. It is in its infancy now, aud all ics efforts are more or less tentative. Inherently imperfect but struggling for the right, it will, as its borders enlarge, become a powerful social institution by and bye. But it will have during its initiation, and indeed ever after, to scrupulously avoid,as the uncleanest of unclean things, the slightest semblance of intimidation or coercion of the violent kind. Moral suasion by all means and the enforcement of rules, but not by the process the most detestable of all Boycotting. For that will be sure to excite the bitterest opposition, and so, instead of one party of progress in the Colony, will be two of antagonism, armed to the teeth and always at each other’s throats.