Work and Wages.

Otago Witness, Issue 1421, 15 February 1879, Page 10

Work and Wages.

Mr George Munro, the sculptor, since his return from the West Coast, has had several blocks of' Oaswell Sound marble, which he brought over with him, cut up and poJished. He says he would not wish for a better quality of marble. It takea a fine polish, as may be seen from the specimens at his yards, Moray place. • The samples are of the purest white, and a most beautiful dove colour. There are •outcroppings of this valuable stone 3000 feet high, and Mr Munro says there would be no difficulty in getting it to market. The contractor has finished his contract additions to the Kaiapoi Woollen Mill 3. With the new machinery the compauywill be able to turn out any kind of tweed required.

The Smythesdale correspondent of the Ballarat Star writes :— " In Tennjßonian accents sweet and mild, we may be told that ' this is a land o* settled government,' but just at present it' » decidedly unsettled, aa witness the large number of swagsmen who are making their way from the westward to that elysium of bliss — Melbourne. Add to this the unsettled state of the adult population 'in the gold fields towns outside of Ballarat, and it may be Sandhurst and a few other places, the flitting and growling that takes place, the unsaleable nature of small blocks I of land, and the general depression in value of the larger areas, .combined with the acknowledged want of employment, and then I think that those gentlemen who sit and write articles in the ease of a sof t-cuahioned chair, and who draw a glowing picture of our prosperity, if they could only act impartially, must see breakers ahead of the State ship that will require a cool head and a steady hand to avoid shipwreck. Not a day that I do not see several of the migratory claas trudging along for the metropolis, and in a few weeks, it may be j months, when sources of labour are exhausted i and the number of the unemployed is augmented, there will be stirring timas in Melbourne." Letters patent have been obtained by Paul Jablochkoff, of Paris, engineer^ for im- I provements in electric lamp*, and in arrange- | ments connected therewith for dividing and dis- 1 tributing the electric light. Electric lamps, as i usually constructed, have the carbon points I placed end to end, and mechanism is provided for the purpose of maintaining them at a suit' able distance from each other as they are consumed, but by this invention all such mechanism is dispened with, the carbon sticks being placed parallel to each other, and the material in which they are embedded being consumed simultaneously wUh the carbon. The light can also be coloured, divided, and varied. " Cheap labour" is a greater peril to capital than to the working classes, because capital has more to lose by the decline of national prosperity which is certain to result from the degradation of labour.