THEN AND NOW

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8609, 20 December 1913, Page 4

THEN AND NOW

Is the. working man in New Zealand better off to-day tban be was twenty years ago? Mr George Nelson, managing director of Niven and Co., and a largo employer of labour, said in a speech on Wednesday night that he is not. However, we have not the slightest hesitation in saying that the working man is materially better off than ho was twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, or thereabouts, there existed in New Zealand, even in this young country, then quite infantile in the industrial sense, a large amount of deplorable sweating. Child labour was grossly under-paid and competed shockingly with grown men and women. Girls were employed at dressmaking—at “learning dressmaking”— without payment at all for the first year, and with a very good prospect of dismissal if a wage was demanded at the end of twelve months. Twenty years ago, only a few of the small number of trade unions existing could demand, and none could enforce, a minimum wage. Twenty years ago there was no compensation for injury or death bj* accident, although the employer might have been entirely responsible. A man might then give up his life through the circumstances of his employment, and his wife and children were faced with starvation or a subsistence on charity. Twenty years ago factories were insanitary, ill-ventilated, unhealthy; accommodation for shearers and agricultural workers was of the most primitive character. Twenty years ago it was, in short, every man for himself, and a personage not mentioned in polite society could'take the hindmost. The State recognised hardly any responsibility, provided scarcely any safeguards against injustice, against sweating, unhygienic environments of work. Everything was left to the goodwill of the employer, and the just and humane of these were faced with the vicious competition of unscru-

pulous. All these things have been changed—vastly changed—for the bettor during the two decades. Compen--sation for accidents has been brought about and developed almost to a science. Sweating has been suppressed; practically, it has been abolished. Legitimate unionism has been legalised and encouraged and protected. Tho victimisation of a man for prominence in his union is a legal offence, punishable and frequently punished. Wages have been increased and working hours reduced. Proper accommodation for workers in factories, fields and workshops is insisted upon by the law and enforced bv an elaborate scheme of inspection. ‘ If Mr Nelson’s generalisation is to bo accepted, all the voluminous legislation that Liberal Governments have constructed to establish tho vast alterations wo have briefly sketched might just as well have never been passed, and could be repealed tomorrow without loss or regret. s there anyone, even in these ephemeral days of Tory rule, bold enough to openly advocate such a course.