THE INDUSTRIAL SITUATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12450, 5 September 1902, Page 3

THE INDUSTRIAL SITUATION.

TO TH!i KDITOB. Sir,—l have just road your leading article on the- above question in your issue of 25th August, in which you commented on the address of Mr G. T. Booth, president of the Canterbury Employers' Association. Both Sir Booth and Mr Frostick think they have discovered remedies for the industrial eondi--1 tiotiis under which all' classes of society suffer. What fallacies! Both of the gentlemen mentioned in their addresses advised ''more efficiency and more energy" when alluding to the labour troubles in Britain. I want to ask here what good would such advice as the above accomplish in Britain? The Duke of Buceleuch owns land in Britain equal to a mile wide from John o . Groat's House to Land's End. The results are that when landlords find that wages rise then rents rise in like proportion, thus leaving the toilers in the same helpless and hopeless condition. All our industrial troubles ha,ve a cause, and to think of remedying the trouble without removing the cause is not only stupidit is ridiculous. Fixing the price of labour or anything else by law is silly. Our labour unions arc to blame. They declare that labour needs protection. Labour needs no protection. What labour wants- is freedom. It is monopoly that needs protection. I said labour needs freedom—access to the storehouse of .Nature—the soil given by the Father to all His children for their use from generation to gene-ration. The cause of the trouble ougl'-t to be obvious to all those willing to think. Man's law simply violates the eternal law of God. I have given you an example above how ono human beiug owned something like 150,000 acres of land in Britain. He had 10 large residences, all of them a great deal too big for any one man to enjoy. His income was £1600 a day, and all earned by others. Sir, I am happy to be able to say that the remedy has been, discovered. It is making rapid progress in Britain. I shall close by quoting a few lines from a speech made by Mr Charles Wiekstoed at .a conference on the land question, held in London on the 10th May. The speaker said, in part, "I am a leaseholder of his [the duke's], and at the end of about 60 years ray successors will have to give up a beautiful' house, on which I have spent many thousands of, pounds, to the duke. How willingly would I qive my rent [the natural tax] to iny countrymen for the privilege of occupying that piece of ground! How unjust it is that the Duke of Buooleucli should take it and also all nw pro-

party too! "What a direct robbery of the people this is, and not through the original sin of humanity, but from the wrong of our present land laws." Our labour unions are determined that they shall build up the same system in New Zealand as that which exists in the Homeland. They are determined that they shall bear the taxation out of their wages through the tariff instead of what man never made—the land. When the workers come to see that to remove all taxation from industry—from everything made by labour and substitute a tax on land values—then, and not till then, will labour troubles be settled. The duke would then be on the same footing as the toiler—he would earn his own living. I am, etc., Otamita, September 1. R. Dodds.