CO-OPERATIVE WORKS. (By a Settler).

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 11391, 5 December 1898, Page 2

CO-OPERATIVE WORKS. (By a Settler).

Not long since an article written for a Island paper commenced with the ' following words: "When the obituary notice of the Co operative "Works scheme (so much a feature of tho Liberal Government) is written, it will bo found that the system as carried out has failed to dowhat its advocates claimed it wonld do, and now claim it has done." It is quite true that, " as carried out," it has failed ; but to talk of an obituary notice is sheer nonsense ; for co-operatiou ia the spirit of the agf, and the key note of most oE^" the progress of tho present day. Tbe middleman in nearly all departments'of trade and industry is being steadily and surely supplanted, aud his place filled by organisers whose salaries \ ire but a fraction of the huge profits of former days. It is 40 years and more sinco co operation in the purchase of the necessaries of life ' * cauio to the assistance of tho artisan atid labourer, and since then it has gone j6n and prospered, a great ana irresistible force, casting such a ray of brightcjess on the pathway of the toilers of the world,. that now looking backward one wonders how it came to pass that, for so long, industry should have borne on its shoulders such an '• old mau of tha sea." as the middleman.

Onward rolled the great wave of Cooperation, capturiag even sections of trade and commerce which teemed the most out of its range, gaining strength as the years advanced, till last of all, herein New Zealand, it came to the navvy the man who makes our railways and our roads, and told him that his work should be given to him on co-operative principles, that he should choose his mates and work in gangs, and in addition to ordinary earnings he should have tha contractors* profits — tint no more should the ganger, "the navvy's boss," como down th&. line goading the men to greater effort, and sacking some to extract the very last shovelful in the day's work that the others were capable of. An j the navvy's heart rejoic ci — for he bis a heart, n. heart to feel even as iii-» brother the maai of education and refinement and greater opportunities; and ie is because Co-opera-tion recogn'ses this fact and that we are all patt9 of a "dtupendens whole whose* body Nature h and God the soul:" because Cooperation is a daughter of thegreat principle "Thou Bhalt love thy neighbour as thyself," because it is even part and parcel of that "graiu of mustard seed" which shall some day overshadow this wonderful world of ours. It is because Co operation is all thi?, that it is ins > the forefront of industrial progress. It is owiDg to the fact that the Co-operative, works as carried on at present in many districts is trailing the principles of Cooperation in the dusr, so that the toilers, sought to be benefited, are well nigb in despair, and because the subject is of general public importance, not a feature of any Government or any political party, that it is sought in two or three, •'hurt articles to deal with the matter, and solely on grounds of public interest, for no future Government will be allowed to. do away with the principle iv connection with public work 9. It i 3 not intended ia Any way to attempt to acarifyjor haras* any department or any officials; instances of mismanagement and hardship and also of good management will bo referred ta as caseß in point, to show where improvements might be effected, but it will b» done in a fair spirit of criticism to which, all departments of the public service ara open. In is no twopenny half* ppnny question that h involved, for the Co - operative works hava grown to be a big thing; as many a» four and five thousand men have beea employed at one time, and as bearing oa the Ufepf our settlers in the back blocks x>f Taranaki, ifc is only second to the., question of roads, for the Government under the Co-operative works system is. the only employer for years, .and if that source fails to be a benefib to the settler individually or collectively, the harm done is considerable, and it would bo better for hin? that the country should go back to the old contracting system, for then there would be several employers, and if he did not get on with one, he would with aoother— while under the Government he has the individual peculiarities of the inspector to reckon with, and from which peculiarities and decisions there i 3 now no appeal, It ia, therefore, of public importance that the Co operative works should be rnn on co-operative principles. It is anything but that now, and has only been f uccessf ul wi>9re a really first-class man as inspector is in command. This is nobody's faulfc in particular; it ia the fault of the system, which places absolute power in the hands of unsuitable and unworthy inspectors, and provides no machinery for appeal for._the navvy. Human nature has not been changed, and few can stand the strain of absolute power without abusing it. But I aoi anticipating. First, let us note the reforms which the advocates of the Co-operative works Bcheme proposed to > effect and now claim have been achieved; and 'then let us examine the machinery under which the men are set to work. There were five important points, of reform or principles laid down: — . 1. That iv carrying out public works the Co-operative system is cheap to the country, and the work,.better done for the money. . 2. That the contractors' profits are dis* tributed amongst the workmen, and the whole community benefits. 3, That the crushing rule of life, one law for the lich and another for the poor, one wage for the strong and another -for the weak, is mitigated to such aiar extent that the body politic gains. ,'' 4, That tho machinery is worked on, a plan that any man can appeal to the Labour Department, and receive ias^aufc consideration of lits suit. 5, That the system confers an unspeakable boon ou the struggling settler of the back blocks. A grand .programme indeed, and one that might be carried out— but i 9 not. And as to the machinery of nnnige— ment. Tho chief of all the Co-opetalive works is the Ministtr of Lauds and through him the Surveyor General, with the Minister of Labour as a sort of nondescript to see fair play. Then the works carried out in each "survey district - are under the hsadship of the Obi if Surveyors and through them the various road surveyors iv charge ; ■ aud under them agaia are the roa i inspectors, who havo more or less absolute powei accords ing to their position iv the various dis« tricts and tho number of minor inspectors under them. Tha inspectors average quite three to every eighty or hundred working men. So ibat h-re wo have a large department of Public Works necessitating a vast a-nount of detail tacked on to another department which previously was full up whb work aud responsibility. No wonder it is the case that road inspectors have come to be in • vested with unlimited power in the treatment of the men under their charge — the magnitude of the command and the responsibility may be guaged from the fact that in ordinary cases £2,000 per month is paid away in wagej by one inspector (that is inclusive of Co operative men working on improved farm settlements as well as roads). And be it noted that many of these inspectors are men with no special training for tie work — men of experience in other walks of life, tbti* only qualification to start with having been tho need of a billet. No doubt (-mart men soon pick up a smattering of what is required of them, but whilo they are learning (aa will be shown later on) tho unfortunate navvy has to bear the brunt of their mistakes. It is one great blot of tha system that men without spechl training and qualifications are pitchforked into responsible positions. Later on we will refer to how the system falls short iv all the fivo great points of tho programme laid down by the Minister of Labour" ; but for the present we will deal with the two which effect the uien the most, viz , the second, whore it is stated that tho contractors' profits were to- be shared amongst tho men, aud the fourth, that there is at all times quick and satisfactory appeal for tho men. The coij-