South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 1893.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7285, 12 August 1893, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 1893.

It has been said that nothing will Justify a strike but success. At that rate the English coal miners’ strike has been amply justified. The coal owners proposed swingeing reductions in wages; the men resisted, went out, demanded a rise in wages in place of a reduction, and the owners have had to give way. The men are being begged to go back to work on the old terms, and some of them are getting increased pay. It will not signify much to the owners ; they will make the consumer pay. Indeed it may bo more profitable to give the higher wages, as the owners can drive a harder bargain with the consumers, if they try, than they can with their workmen. A standing complaint in all linos of industry at Home is low prices. Hitherto the “ captains of industry ” have been working for business by underselling one another, and then working for profits by cutting down wages. A check has been given to this system in the coal trade, and it is imaginable that a new system will spring out of it, by which the masters will strive to make their profits out of the consumers by raising prces, and thus at one stroke benefir, themselves and help to stop the perpetual croak about low prices.

It is a pitiful feature of the system of Party government that questions regarding which there is room for divergence of opinion cannot he discussed without the imputation of personal motives, and of a lack of the simplest form of truthfulness Last night the House of Representatives again had the Electoral Bill in hand, and again accusations of insincerity wore made against the Ministry, and worse still, that in addition to personal insincerity, Ministers had sought, and successfully, to influence certain members of the Legislative Council to vote against the measure. It is pitiful, painful, to find men who have been selected to direct the destinies of the country charging each other with conduct which implies a general character unfitting them for the management of even the smallest business concern wherein honesty and truthfulness are of any account. “ Liar ” is one of the ugliest words in the English language, and insincerity ”is but a slightly watered synonym. “ Liar ” is unparliamentary, and “ insincere ” and “ insincerity ” ought to be so too. And not only the words, but the ideas they express, should be kept out of the House, necessary by the Sergeaut-at-Arms,