THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1923. LABOUR DAY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18999, 23 October 1923, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1923. LABOUR DAY.

Apart from its symbolic value, Labour Day affords an agreeable x-espito from the monotony of workday routine at a time of the year when fine spring weather, such as was experienced yesterday, should be expected with a fair degree of confidence. A no-labour day in one sense, it yet typifies, hi quite intelligible fashion, Labour’s essential worth and dignity. Yesterday was the thix-ty-fourth occasion of the kind in Dunedin, the first Labour Day synchronised with—and., indeed, originated from—the memorable upheaval which gives a striking but chequered colour to the industrial annals of the year 1890. It was the year of the disastrous maritime stx-ike, widen virtually dissipated all the commercial advantage locally accruing from the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition of 1889-90; hut it was also the year which witnessed the first conspicuous successes of the political Labour movement in the dominion. It is unnecessary to trace the sequences of the events of that stormy time; but it may be recalled that within two months of the fii’st Labour Day celebrations tho Liberal-Labour Alliance swept the poll: in the Dunedin and suburban electorates, and Mr oohn Ballance superseded Sir Harry Atkinson as Premier immediately afterwards,-—initiating a regime which lasted for twenty-one years. The controversies of that time are extinct, or have assumed a different shape, and anyhow it has to be recognised that Labour Day in Dunedin has seldom, if ever, been associated with militant sentiments! On the first occasion, in 1890, a little opposition or unfriendliness was displayed; but the inherent reasonableness of the celebration soon came to bt admitted, even by those who had not been prepossessed in its favour. Some of the early features of the festival arc now only matters of memory,—especially what may be termed the more demonstrative features. The trades procession, entertaining and even ’instructive as it was, has been discontinued, and the official picnic has been transferred to the country,—an arrangement which is undoubtedly in the interests of the children, though it may weaken the concentration of civic interest in somi measure. In 1890, in the first flush ol enthusiasm, a bullock, presented by a citizen who passed away during the present year, was roasted with appropriate rites, the carving being performed by another remembered citizen whfe was reputed, not without most substantial show of reason, to be tho largest and heaviest man in the district. A special Ode was composed, printed, and circulated, —containing some rather pugnacious strictures about “Dives” and “Greed’s rapacious clutoh,” but ending with the unexceptionable sentiment;

This our glorious Labour Day shall ever henceforth be. To all whose hearts have human thrills, a day of jubilee 1 So be it! w© say in all friendly sincerity. There was no roasted bullock yesterday, no exultant Ode; but “tempera mutantur, nos etmutamur in illis. 1 In 1899 the New Zealand Legislature proclaimed Labour Day a statutory holi day; and it is, and will continue to be regarded as an acceptable festival by all labourers, —including (may we suggest? those whose labour is not exclusively or even chiefly of a manual kind.