The Star. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1893.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4766, 5 October 1893, Page 2

The Star. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1893.

The Lords and Labour.

Probably every -working man in the Colony will sympathise with the Minister for Labour in his righteous wrath against the Upper Houbo, which has either killed or crippled nearly every measure designed in the interests of the working classes presented to it this session. The treatment accorded by the majority of the Legislative Councillors to the Bills. most in favour with the masses has been simply scandalous. It is mere hypocrisy to assert, a3 the Conservatives do, that these measures were thrown out or mutilated because the slaughterers wished to obtain the opinion of the people upon them, or because they had been passed with undue haste in the other branch of the Legislature. As a matter of fact they embodied principles which were emphatically endorsed by the electors at the laßt general election, and at by-elections since, and which, as is perfectly well known, save by those who, like our Tory " Lords," hold ignorance on such matters to be bliss, the mass of the people in all civilised lands approve. Again, the Bills in question received most careful consideration in the Lower House. One, the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Bill, has been passed by that Chamber no fewer than three times. All were referred to a Special Committee, which, in some instanced, made important modifications in them ; all had to run the gauntlet of fierce and persistent opposition from the ConEorvatives in the House. It is simple impertinence to claim that in rejecting measures which had undergone such an ordeal the Council was "fulfilling its legitimate function of a chock upon ill-coneidered and hasty legislation." The real cause of the unreasoning hostility to the Labour Bills displayed by the Conservative Legislative Councillors is their utter want of sympathy with the feelings and aspirations of 'the working classes. They hold, apparently, that the workers of the Colony are so deficient in intelligence as not to know what is good for them j their thinking, in short, mußt he done for them by their employers and the "intelligent minority." This opinion is not confined to members of the nominee Chamber, bat is 3hared by Conservatives in Parliament, in the Press and in the country. Of course the Tories do not always admit that thiß is so, but they prove it all the time by bitter opposition to every measure 'for improving the condition of the workers, and occasionally, in unguarded moments, by their platform or Press utterances. The fate of the Labour Bills in the Council shows how baseless were the Tory objections to the addition of twelve new members to that Chamber. Even with this reinforcement the Government was unable to preserve the live 3 of many of its principal Billß in .that slaughter-houee of Liberal measures, and yet the opponents of those measures had the effrontery to accuse the Ministry of, wishing to destroy the independence of the Council by sending into at a body of man insufficient to secure in some instances, even fair discussion of its proposals. The transparent humbug of the Conservative protestations on this mattar will, probably, lead the public to draw its own conclusion as to the weight to be attached to their professions in regard to other • questions. With regard to the Upper House it3elf, it will, in the worda of the Minister for Labour be for the people, at the general election, to decide whether they are to govern themselves, or whether, year after year, Bills are to be rejected, and the ( country practically ruled, by a handful of j domineering nominee?. )