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Southland Times, Issue 13217, 15 May 1895, Page 3

(Continued onpage 1/.)

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is therefore under his orders, is called servant —a person inferior to and dependent upon him. This is a false relationship, if contentment and equity are to rule in the industrial world. The true relationship must be equality of service and the contribution of two parts to make one whole. That whole is industrial success—the wealth of the community based upon nature s resources developed and utilised by the work and skill of man. Actual manual labour is that which creates out of raw natural resources a thing of value and use. Capital provides the instruments and appliances whereby this manual labour can be turned to most account; its products disposed of and a continuous demand for them maintained. Now this reads very nice coming from a large employer of labour, and runs perilously near socialism ; but it is only a playing upon words which have a pleasant jingle in the ears of labour. What does it matter by what dames hbour and capital are called? Whatever fancy names may bo employed in speaking of these two their true relation is that of masters and servants, and this Mr Mather makes very plain further on. Again quoting my text: “The magnitude of capitalist profits in trade and commerce is not the measure of a nation’s industrial supremacy and well-being.. It is the widespread prosperity that enriches a ration, not wealth amassed in few hands. The ■ wider the distribution of profits derived from the combined forces of capital and labour the better security we have for permanent investment of capital and the increased consumption of these products which keep the wheels of industry in constant motion, though individual employers and great companies have lower dividends.” True, most true, 0 King 1 But who among these individual employers and great companies gives a practical recognition to this truth. The wild ass sniffs the east wind but it does’nt feed him, and penning these nice sentiments does’nt distribute the profits derived from labour where it is so badly wanted. Nor is this distribution ever likely to come about under the present system, as it depends wholly upon voluntary moral action and the first Adam is too strong within us yet. 1 again quote my author : “ One indirect benefit to employers which the unions did not foresee, perhaps,is that marked impetus wasgiven to labour-saving appliances, and new methods of working. The trade unions are now doubtless fully aware that there is no limit to the ingenuity of man and tho resources of science it may command, all of which come into the hands of capital, if called for, to meet any undue strain which labour might impose.” This quotation shows where the power really lies and who are the masters and who the servants, and how little chance there is of masters and great companies making a fair and equitable division of the profits derived from the combined forces of capital and labour whilst capital has this power to coerce labour at its call. The next quotation shows still more clearly how impotent labour really is against capital notwithstanding unionism : “ Capital cannot suffer physically as labour does from any cause that depresses trade. The first sign of the ebb of the tide of trade causes employers to reduce production, and work at once begins to slacken. This means that men employed one week are discharged the next.” In another place he says“ Capital controls its possessions of raw materials, lands, buildings, machinery, and appliances . . . . in the distribution of products capital has sole control.” Here we have a true statement of the real position of labour and a true declaration of the powers of capital. Capitalistscannot suffer physically, i.e , feel the pangs of hunger and cold for the want of food and fire and clothing in these contests between capital and labour. Capital pan always starve labour into subjection if arbitration does not intervene. But if there could be an eternal truce established between these two forces—that is labour and capital really employed,—still the great problem to be eolved — the permanent unemployed — remains untouched. There is not sympathy enough either in the ranks of employed labour or among capitalists to devise a scheme sufficiently magnanimous to take in all the unemployed. It requires too great an act of moral goodness to expect that it will ever be performed spontaneously. There is only one way to solve this great problem, and that is by the Slate taking possession of the raw materials—the sources of labour and of life—now possessed by the capitalist and utilising them for the common benefit of all whom it permits to enter a country, and their natural increase. Such a state of things as now exists, where a small minority of people called capitalists hold the power of want and starvation over the great majority—and that majority educated and intelligent as the ’generation now growing up will be—can never last; a solution will come some way. Intelligent people will not suffer want and privation in the midst of plenty and unlimited means of farther plenty. Men will not always have their ears insulted by the cant about times of depression, and scarcity of work, and made to eat the bread of charity when they are willing to earn their bread it the sources of labour were only open to them. They will, like the lions of Judah, some day break all their chains and gain a lasting victory.— I am, &c., T. Buxton. 11th :May.