AT IT AGAIN.

Observer, Volume XXVII, Issue 36, 25 May 1907, Page 2

AT IT AGAIN.

" Satan Finds Some Mischief Still."

MR E. TREGEAR, the privileged gentleman who appears to be paid £525 per annum from the public purse for the propagation of socialistic propaganda, has broken out in a fresh place. His latest proposal is that the Arbitration Act should be amended in the direction of giving the Court power to divide the piofits of a business between the employer and the employed. This is a proposition that ought certainly to be gratefully welcomed by the employers, who provide the greater part^of Mr Tregear's salary, and who have been so materially benefited by the operation of the Arbitration Act.

The Court has already gone a very considerable distance in the interests of the employed. Whether an employer is making profits in his business or not, he is compelled to pay a certain fixed wage to his hands, apart from any consideration whether the returns Irom his undertaking warrant this wage or not. Even though he personally may be compelled to work twelve or fourteen hours a day, in the struggle to make both ends meet, his employees are relieved of both labour and responsibility after the lapse of eight hours. Also, though his revenue is based on the volume of output from his factory, he is compelled to pay his hands for some holidays, though the output for those days ceases, and there is no revenue at all.

Just as if this were nob sufficient burden, Mr Tregear now rises, in his own well-paid and comfortable public position, to demand that the employer should divide the prohts of a business with the employee. He does not suggest that the employee should share the loss. That is a horse of a wholly different colour. If the profits are £1000 this year, the Arbitration Act should divide £500 of this amount amongst the already sufficiently-paid hands, but if there is a loss next year of £1000, the employer should bear the whole of it himself. Surely this proposition is worth the £525 that Mr Tregear is paid.

We might, however, suggest a better. Why not allow all Government employees to come under the operation of the Arbitration Act ? Then we would no longer have a continuance of the present system of Government servants being sweated both in their wages and hours of labour, while employees in private business concerns are being well treated. Also, on the socialistic principle of share and share alike, why should Mr Tregear, in his comfortable billet, be paid £525 a year to talk socialism, while better men, working excessively long hours, are only getting £100 and £125 a year for strenuous labour in the Post and Telegraph, Kailway and other departments of the • public service ? The private employers have bad their turn. It is time now that the public service received some attention. We say without hesitation that there are men

in the public service who are paid large salaries for simply trimming their finger nails, while other and able men, aDd strenuous workers at that, are toiling night and day for a wretched pittance. If there is need for further reforms, it lies in the public service, where Mr £. Iregear has found a comfortable and wellpaid refuge,.