WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1908.) THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2811, 26 August 1908, Page 51

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1908.)

THE WEEK.

"Oood aacur* and cooJ («i«e mine «r«r;ola.' r — For«. The decision of the Arbitration Court to refuse to make an award in The Farm respect of the Canterbury Labourers' farm labourers' dispute is Dispute. undoubtedly the best news with which the farming community in the Dominion has been presented for many a long day ; for at the outset it emphasises the essential distinction between the conditions of labour in town and in country and disposes effectually of an attempt to harass agricultural enterprise by the imposition upon farmers of vexatious and impossible conditions. The life of the farmer — in common with that of the policeman — is certainly not a happy one. Those engaged in either profession have to keep continually upon the alert ; rest and leisure are to both almost unknown luxuries. But the farmer is even in worse plight than the policeman, for -while the guardian of the peace has some reliable data upon which to base

I his theories and conclusions the farmer in his battle with the weather has to deal with an altogether uncertain and unreliable quantity. When, therefore, one local authority expressed the opinion that success in agriculture hung; on the skirts o£ opportunity he exactly hit- the nail on the head, and succinctly gave the -real reason why Mr Justice Sim felt impelled to decline to make an award, for any attempt j to regulate the hours and nature of work! - upon a farm, by a hard and fast Arbitration Court award must mean the constant loss of those opportunities which make for the final perseverance of the agriculturist. The decision of the court is ' all the more gratifying because the suspicion prevails that " the dispute was originally engineered by professional agitators in the city for purely political purposes,' and that the actual proportion of bona fide farm ( labourers interested is astonishingly small. ! If this 'allegation be true — and it is supported by a good deal of evidence — the attempt to disturb the harmony which at present prevails between employer' and employed in the" country, and incidentally to hamper the great productive t interests of the Dominion, cannot be characterised ,in too emphatic terms.

The old feeling of mutual help and cooperation which used to CoM«efratism exist betwixt master and 'In th» servant has" unhappily— afc Country. least so far as the cities are concerned — almost altogether passed away. Lingering traces are still here and ithere to be discerned, bufc on the whole — thanks' to the growing' tide of Socialism — the normal attitude of labour to capital is one of thinly-veiled antagonism. Whether in the long run labour will find -itself much better off for the alteration is a moot question, into which it is not wise at the present moment to enter ; but in the country at any rate a more conservative element is foundj which clings to the old order of things. Certainly the introduction of machinery has made for considerable change in the routine of ' farm work, but still the farmer" is greatly dependent upon the faithfulness of his servants for the success of his operations. There is so much in farm work which claims the exercise of the individual judgment, and which cannot be carr^d on by rule of thumb, that the progressive farmer counts himself' fortunate when he secures helpers of in-, telligence who will co-operate with hiirf in all his enterprises, and wJho are contenfc,' ( to reckon the value of their work by the,, results a&hieved. Such being the case, ifc, stands to reason that the farmer will 1 treat well the employee who strives to second his .efforts in season and out of 1 season ; and, further, that he^\vil] reward him in a fashion and give him treatment? ' of a kind which no mere Arbitration . Award could secure. This, then, is tho outstanding reason why so small a percentage of the farm labourer's have interested themselves in the Arbitration j Court dispute, and which renders meaningless the fulminations of discontented Trades and Labour Councils, with their loud cries for the deposition of Mr Justice Sim. It is well known that ever , since the Arbitration Court decisions j ceased to confer an increasing benefit j upon the worker there has set in an organised attempt io insinuate that Mr Justice Sim was biassed in his judgments. | A more unfair attempt to prejudice and i decry a public man, placed in a position ' of acknowledged difficulty, and who has i devoted considerable ability and acumen 1 to the discharge of his duties, *has seldom | been witnessed. And we believe that in I the long run this latest attack upon Mr , Justice Sim will recoil heavily upon the ' heads of his accusers. The international celebration on Friday next of the eightieth birthTolxtoy day of the great Russian dt Eighty. novelist and reformer, Count Le.o Tolstoy, is calculated to create fresh interest in that ' veteran's writings, and actions. By this > week's mail from England we are placed in possession of the full text of Tolstoy's ! passionate protest against government by j execution in Russia, a proof that the . octogenarian man of letters has lost none !of his former fire and vigour. Comment-, ing upon Tolstoy's protest, a London | contemporary remarks — i Between 1842 and 1904 the annual I average of executions in Russia is stated to have been 15. In 1906 1642 / persons were executed in Russia ; in J. 907 the death sentences passed numbered 1692 ; 748 of these were carried out. It is necessary to ! bear these figures in mind in reading the passionate protest of Count Tolstoy. It will then be seen that if there be exaggeration it is not in the epithets of the old reformer. But these figures, grim as they are, do not adequately convey the real hideousness of the tyranny of which they are the fruit. In his recently-published book on " Anarchy, its Methods and Exponents,"Mr Peter Lajouche gives an original explanation of Count Tolstoy's immunity from the death or banishment which has overtaken so many of his compatriots, and we give it for what it is worth : " There was a, great to do in Russia in 1892. because Count Tolstoy's lengthy article advooating many drastic reforms, which was published in the Daily Telegraph — where it could do no harm — was subsequently published in the Moscow Gazette, and might therefore have led to a revolt of the peasantry. The world was held in suspense for days, reading that the-i Count would be sent to Siberia owing to the action of the Moscow paper, but the danger passed and the article was forgotten, the excitement outside Russia being far greater than in Russia. Count Tolstoy, the retired simple-life, amateur millionaire peasant, has the ear of most editors in most countries, and he is by nomeans reticent in his views on things in general. . . An enormously wealthy man, he preaches a social gospel which differs from anarchism only in so far as he does not understand anarchism. His life is theatrical in this respect.: that he apes

the peasant amid surroundings of a prince ; he •is an egotist, because he poses as a prince among philosophers, while his environment is that of a peasant. We in England are asked to marvel at the immunity he enjoys in Russia, and we are told that- his- safety depends on two circumstances — his wealthy and influential, position and the veneration in which he is held by the peasantry. Such reasons are plausible in England, where titles and wealth count for so much, and where popular support is the mainstay of governments ; but a little reflection should prove how ineffective they are when applied to Russia. Political repression has ' never stayed its hand in that country on the score of the wealth or family connections of the accused. Prince Peter Kropotkin is a familiar instance, and Siberia can furnish hundreds of others ;. while to assume that the peasantry can repel despotism, is to controvert the whole theory which we hold, and rightly hold, with regard to the government of that country. As a. matter of fact, Count Tolstoy exerts just as much influence in Jtussia as Father Ignatius does in England. To the peasant he is simply a very wealthy, eccentric landed- proprietor, who tells them that to sleep on a- bed instead of a floor would increase their wants and make them luxurious. With the Terrorisib he ■ has neither lot, part, nor sympathy ; and to the Government he is a positive blessing. Who can say that Russia is "despotic and an enemy to free speech and free opinion while Tolstoy is within its confines, preaching- his amiable communism, without let or hindrance ? Tolstoy is now an exploded force only, because in Russia ■' he was never a force The bedless peasant is just as much iwpressed by his teachings as the English beggar is by the beauty of Christian charity after the dog has ' been set , on him at the vicarage gates."