SWEATING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5490, 15 February 1896, Page 7

SWEATING.

Tli© following is the substauco of an addreaa delivered in the Art Gallery on Jan. 26, 1896, by Mr J. O'Bryen Hoare : — " Sweating-! " The word may sound vulgar to fastidious eara ; but being good honest Saxon, let it pass, and the more readily as in its half-figurative use it has come to stand for one of the commonest •wrongs inflicted by man upon his fellow. The time was when this self -same wrong was regarded as a "right" — the right of might and ownership. Now, whatever our practice, in theory at least it is a term of reprobation ; and whilst we still regard it as a virtue that a man should sweat his own life out in the struggle to get money, and , the pleasure, comf or t.and.power that money ; brings in. a, mammon-worshipping .age,- in theory at least we have come to i reprobate a man's exploiting the labour of another for his own enriohment. I shall 'not attempt to set forth thedetails of t sweating, nor repeat those harrowing tales, which, for' the moment, break even the hard crust of our selfishness, of men and women and children grinding out their lives for a wage which has reduced starvation to an art, and forces human beings to frightful and degrading experiments in order to discover the smallest possible amount of food, the barest shelter, the scantiest clothing on which and jp which life can be sustained. Our attention is apt to be too much centred on effects, though I suppose that effects do lead us to consider causes ; and far too often we are content to remedy effects. Such remedy is no remedy at all, however kindly intended. In this matter especially- there is crying need that we turn our attention to causes, that we try. to grasp the spirit of the theory ; and though I maybe deemed by some to introduce too much of sentiment into the matter, that [thought doeß not deter me. lam here to deal with sentiments, for I hold that pure sentiment is the finest, holiest, godliest thing on earth. Bat for it humanity would rot to the very core. False sentiment may be a poor thing ; "if the salt have, lost its savour wherewith shall it be seasoned ?" .._... ■-.:,'.;.• Our friends the Theos.ophiats are.much given to the consideration of planes arid their sequences, often so elaborated and •multiplied that • the ' non-psychic man hardly knows .where he stands. But they have one simple comprehension, and very applicable , to the case in point. Par back there is the plane of thought. Then, lower, there is the astral, or, as I prefer to name it, the ideal plane, where thought begins to be clothed by the imagination; then, thirdly, close around us there is the plane of action. Now we study effects on the last, and make our laws dealing with the abuses that exist thereon. We make many laws— we make them sometimes by the dozenr-and yet the. abuse goes on, branded, it is true, by ther "Thoushalt not" of our legislation, and sometimes putting on a flimsy veil for decency sake ; yet so little 1 diminished, if diminished at all, that the whole thing becomes a farce, and the proverbial coach and four is driven through the Act of Parliament. Hence the constant gibe " that you cannot make men moral by Act of Parliament." Who cares to ask why ? Yet the answer is clear and simple enough. Because individually and collectively we constantly sustain the very spirit of the abuse which ?we affect to remove by law. Take the case of sweating. In England to-day the laws against it are stringent, and here we have some enactments in the same direction; yet, day by day, the thing goes on around us, tinder our very noses, Why? Because, I say, we are keeping alive the very spirit which is at once its cause and its source. We are always ready to take, not only all we can get, but a great deal more than we give, We desire to grasp more than we yield. Wd' cast up the value of every service we render to the last farthing, on a most liberal estimate, but we are mean and niggardly in our valuation of service rendered to us, almost taking it as a matter of course. Cheapnesa has. a charm for us, and we gloat over our bargains.. If we can buy a thing for less than it cost to produce it we are uplifted for a week, and boast as if we had done some great thing. Who is not guilty ? Hence our thought neutralises the very law we pass, and the abuse goes on. Of course we do not do the sweating ourselves;; indeed, we are shocked when we hear of its going on, and heap abuse on the middleman, who does our dirty work for us, which is only the completeness of our meanness. And, further, are .we not supporting and perpetuating these low ideals which set the standard of our trade practices by our very system of education. .There, in school, are taught some of tho first lessons of competition ; there we teach our children to be dinning at exchange, and sharp in trade. Sharpness covers a multitude of sins, and though quite logically the "sharper" has come to stand for a rogue, sharpness is our aim. The ." self-made man " stands in our estimation only second to the man who is " born with a silver spoon in his mouth," though, as someone has said, it is well oftentimes that he is self-made, for he would not be much credit to anyone else. Now, look at the spirit of the thing — the sentiment of the thing if you like. You may treat men as machines, you may measure muscular force by feet and pounds, and nerve tension by

ounces, but you can never make men into machines. Hence, it follows that in all services rendered there ia somotbing that cannot be expressed in pounds, BhiUinga and pence, not even when the wage reaches the maximum and the labour is light; there is an expenditure of soul-energy, manhood, for which there can be but one return— in kind, service for service, help for help. We are many of us deeply in debt, and there is no bankruptcy court. on this plane where we can get whitewashed. If there is right and justice in the universe it will have to be worked out somewhere, somehow. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was the old rough and ready way devised by the Hebrew legislator for | expressing this same principle. Have we got much further forward when we think that we can atone .for. -sweating by a fine, o.r so stay its prevalence ? .. : Jesus" of Nazareth was [. a master of parable, "and characteristically. . He deals with this principle after that fashion. We, with, our'prosaic Western method of inter? pretatjon have missed His meanings. Take, for example, the parable known as "The* Talents," in which each servant was first trusted and then rewarded according to his ability. All turns on that' word ability; but we confuse it with gift, talent, cleverness. • Note that the reward of ability was success, pictured by the. ruling oyer cities. On the spiritual plane ability is simply will power, the power which the averagehealthy " man can develop. Not, indeed, unconditionally, but subject to conditions. And will power is simply the translation of ideals into realities. We have the ideal ; our laws prove that. The laws of any land fairly represent its ideals; but human will can turn them into reality • for lack of that the laws are broken, ignored, fruitless. "If there be, first, a willing mind, it is accepted according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not." That .was the Jewish way of putting it. In our phraseology it is that the willing mind brings the eternal law into operation, and the thing must be, or cease to be, according to its Tightness, or its wrongness. It is childish to say or think that because there are the ,< wretched and miserable down-trodden and' sweated, they must ever be when; we pass our laws to remedy such evils. The question is; do' you "permit them? '. Do : you stand by and see this thing -perpetrated ? j Do ■■ you by action or inaction aid it 'and abet it? Ah, .you, say in mock modesty, what can I. do ? >You remember the words put on~ the lips of the lethargic, indolent, shilly-shallying servant — : "Lord, I knew thee that thou art qphard man," " therefore I was afraid." It is just your will power that is needed to give that law force and efficacy] It is just the shutting up of that power within ourselves that keeps the world so sick and so poor. Meanwhile we content ourselves with/ fine words. We parade them on every, possible occasion. Chi many lips they are as empty as soap bubbles. Combination ! co-operation ! brotherhood ! Ah! but they do mean something; they mark the presence of the ideal thought has f ormu : ■lated. We know that sweating is acrying cruelty, most brutal 'and brutalising. It \ only needs that th\ m,en and women, the thoughtful men and women of this community stand up in their manhood and womanhood and cry "Stop it," and it will vanish. iße sure there are no' dead ideals. They live as messengers of love, peace and prosperity, or they live as gloomy shadows, darkening and saddening pur - lives. We ■inqsfc of us. have . a vague impression that the truth is great and must prevail. How ? Trath is great and must prevail, • . , Trite the adapo. Where and when P ; <• . Truth has failed, will fail again /.. , If not backed by truthful men. :