IS IT A SUCCESS ?

Observer, Volume XXI, Issue 1183, 31 August 1901, Page 2

IS IT A SUCCESS ?

Labour Legislation in Victoria.

IT is not only in New Zealand that the ruinous consequences of ill-advised and extreme Labour legislation arc being felt. Victoria has been indulging in some experiments in the same direction, with results very similar to our own, and the outlook there is not very promising. It is interesting to read in the Melbourne papers the criticisms of these new laws, and their operations, and to trace the parallel that they establish with the prevailing state of things in our own country. Verily, it takes a wise man to see the end of the tar-reaching effects of class legislation in the interests of Labour. We gather from a press telegram from Melbourne to a Sydney journal that the new Factories Act " grows in disfavour with all classes as time goes on. Every now and then a new industry is shattered by its demands in the direction of minimum wages to men whether old or young, and as hundreds of men leave their various occupations' to swell the ranks of the unemployed and increase the hunger and misery of . the women and children, the cry of execration goes forth in sufficient bitterness to make the kind-hearted Premier uneasy. The Act is unwavering in its mandates. A man doing certain work, whether well or ill, slowly or quickly, shall receive so much per week for it." Just so. It is the same in New Zealand now. ■ ■ ••• .«•• •«•» Then the writer proceeds :— "But the stern law of necessity and commercial equity says to the employer : ' Well, you can't pay the old and slow man that much, therefore you must discharge him. He might be able to earn 10s or 128 a week less, but then your statute law is obdurate, and must be obeyed.' Thus the old man,

very often an old servant of thirty years' standing, .goes out to idleness/ and «his wife and children cry While they hunger, and wonder how it all eoines about that the Act Which was expected; to dp so much is causing such trouble. -Ami thori comes tfpe domestic • view of the question. All . Bnds <if, pyoxlttce going up. The butcher raisee the price of nieat because tjhe Factorws Act has increased the cost of work-. ing tihc business, and shortened tie hours 'the meri may work* . .The'j grocer is under the same trouble about wages* etc., and up go his prices, and the same remark applies to the milkman, the vegetable seller, and others. The domestic .arrangements ■ aarke k disprga- J nised, and living expenses are increased 25 per cent." <•>'••• ••» ' Evidently, the Factories Act is working no better in Vie- ( toria than the Conciliation and Arbitration Act in New Zealand. In either case, the result is the same. \Vitih_ tl»e higher wages, the cost of living- is forced up, and the working man is no better oil than he was before. At the same time,, the preference of employment is given to youth and strength, and the old and deserving man is forced to the wall. It is not a system that will conduce to the eventual welfare of the I>eople or the country. Unfortunately, too, neither law seems to be able to take hold of and suppress sweating. The trades benefited are those in which' fair wages and reasonable hours already prevail, and. while further advantages are given to these, the sweating system thrives in all its gaunt mystery just as vigorously as it did before.