The Star. TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 1896.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5504, 3 March 1896, Page 2

The Star. TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 1896.

An old story tells how a European in America was overheard to complain, in bitter tones, " There is no liberty in thiß confounded country." "Nonsense," said the nearest Yankee, " you can do as you like here. " Yes," was the reply, " but I want to make other people do as I like." The idea of liberty implied in these words ", is very much like that which, if one may judge from their acts, is held by certain people in New Zealand in . whose mouths the name of . liberty has been very common of late. In their minds liberty seems to be almost invariably associated with property, and a restriction upon freedom is a restriction which prevents them from forcing other people to pay abject deference to the latter, and to slavishly obey those who happen to possess it. Such a restriction is that which is imposed upon employers by the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act; and employers throughout the colony have resented it by declining to nominate members of the boards elected thereunder for the purpose of deciding disputes between them and their employes. It would not be fair tojissume that all employers regard the Act with hostility, but it must be evident that many of them, at all events those who direct the counsels of the various organised associations of employers, do so. Their action, or rather inaction, is, tinder all the circumstances, decidedly ominous, and should bo a warning to those persons who fondly imagine that we have emerged from the state of industrial barbarism in which the strike and the lock-out, with their attendant miseries, were the usual means of settling differences between master ahd man. It must be apparent to anyone who considers the matter that the employers have taken up a position of passive defiance to the law— not to obstruct its working, for they must know that they cannot do that — but because they believe and hope that the law itself will, ere long, be abrogated, or, at least, rendered practically inoperative. The general election is near at hand, and the opponents of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act anticipate that the Conservative Party will return to power, and that all restrictions uponliberty — as understood by the sweater, the monopolist and the land shark — will be swept away. The prospect is not a pleasant one for the workers, but it will be their own fault if it be realized. They are as numerous now as they were when they hurled from power the " Continuous Ministry," and if they are as united eight months hence as they were then, they need have no fear of being delivered into the hands of those whose motto, in regard to labour as well as everything else, is "Buy in the cheapest market." Cheapness is the kernel of the whole matter. The desire for cheap labour is the true cause of the enmity to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, and of the determined, though as yet only partially developed, effort which is being made to stamp out trades unionism in this colony. Disorganised labour certainly means cheap labour ; if the organisation of labour can be broken up, wages must inevitably fall. Hence the extreme anxiety of some people to establish freedom of contract. It is needless to say, however, that the reason here given is not that which is usually advanced by the worshippers of that Tory fetish, but when their elaborate and ingenious arguments are dissected, they will be found to be based on this — they want to'get as much as they can for as little as they can. Sometimesthe bogey of outside competition is raised, even in the colonies, to support the demand for cutting down the workers' pittance. Tliis bugbear is usually raised, strange to say, by people who object to protective duties as a means of defending our manufacturers against the foreigner ; and those who raise it seem to imagine that manufactures exist solely for the benefit of employers, and to be oblivious of the patent fact that an industry which can only be carried on by grinding down the workers engaged in it is a curse, and not a blessing, to the country. However, as long as the present "woll of protection" is not reduced in height, and the legislative guardianship of the rights of the workers now existing is not taken away, there is little need for fear. What would be the result of overturning protection ancl of leaving the workers with no safeguards save those which employers might choose to allow

them, there is no need to inquire. Were we to do so, the state of things revealed by Lord Shaftesbury's Committee in England a couple of generations ago would readily furnish an answer. Human nature now is very mnch what it was then. The gentlemen who wish the power of the entire community to be used? for the propagation of religions dogmas which considerable sections of the community do not believe, are hard at work trying to insert into our educational system the wedge which would infallibly split it to pieces. Like sensible men they are putting in the thin end of the wedge first. That end is the Irish National Scripture Text Book, a compilation of extracts from the Bible, to be read without comment. There is no need to repeat the arguments which prove that the introduction of this book into the State schools must inevitably lead to the substitution of a denominational for a national system of education. The single fact that the book is not accepted as satisfactory by the Eoman Catholics, as witness Father Devoy's I emphatic utterances at Wellington on Sunday, is sufficient proof of this. It would be gross injustice to the Catholics to use the book in the State schools without subsidising their educational establishments. Apart from all this, it is utterly wrong in principle that the machinery of the State should be employed to place before children, as matters of undisputed fact, theories and statements about which there are the widest possible differences of opinion. While it is perfectly true, as asserted by -those who advocate dogmatic instruction in the public schools, that the education of the spiritual faculty in man is of the highest importance, it is wrong that, out of the many and diverse methods of educating that faculty, one should receive the sanction and help of the State, and thus be enforced at the expense of people who do not believe in it. The excellence of the method and the relative numbers of its supporters and opponents do not affect the matter.