Labour Troubles.

Waikato Argus, Volume XXIV, Issue 3675, 7 January 1908, Page 2

Labour Troubles.

♦ Labour troubles are likely to loom large in the year 1908. This Dominionette is now suffering from a species of labour measles. In due course healthy symptoms will supervene, but the patient is likely to be worse before getting better. It is significant that the Wellington Evening Post, a journal which has stood shoulder to shoulder with labour for some fifty years, is now beginning to utter words of warning and to tell the city worker that he is going too far. In the more serene atmosphere of a country town like.Masterton we can . form no conception of the virulence of the labour measles in Wellington. Some one asked a city worker the other day "What sort of men are in your union?" The reply came very prompt and very plain— "Drunken brawlers!" Three men and a bottle can shake things up a good deal in-a place like Wellington and demand from the State everything they can imagine excepting free drinks,and yet free drinks are more in their line . than any other consideration. Of course, in the ranks of the city unions there are plenty of quiet sober, industrious men, whom everyone respects, but these are the quiet men in ' the background, who do not take a very prominent part in political agitations. The men who worry the Government are not exactly the cream of the Labour party, for they are talkers rather than workers. Our labour legislation has developed a class of loafers, who beat the big drum all over New Zealand, scorn manual toil, and grab ■ Government billets. Such men exercise too much power in the land, and the time is coming when they will have to be put in their proper place. The working men— who do not work — are a menace to the prosperity of New Zealand. Here, in Masterton, we would be content for city workers to settle their own labour troubles, but, unfortunately, they send missionaries amongst us to stir up strife in this district. The factories of Masterton are practically governed by Wellington unions, and soon the farmers of Masterton will be under their thumbs. The tyranny of labour is beginning to be felt in the Masterton town and country districts, and the question of throwing off the yoke may be raised. Workers have frequently boasted of their power to kill the Arbitration Act as an operative measure. It is quite possible that employers also posses a similar power if they choose to exercise it. Times have been prosperous, and employers have been willing to submit to absurd conditions for the sake of letting well alone. Labour troubles have been allowed to sleep, but everybody knows that there must be, sooner or later, an awakening. In the near future the city cry of "preference to unionists" may be met by a counter cry of "preference to free labour." If the latter be once raised in earnest it will sound the death knell of the State-medicated unionism, which is now in vogue.

Mr Andrew Collins is in evidence again as the Conciliator with the Big Shears, but he may be said to faithfully represent the City Unionist. The City Unionist does not want conciliation, but merely all the wool he can shear off the carcase of the unfortunate employer. Will the farmer here allow the City Unionist to catch him by the hind leg, and put his head between the knees of tfie said City Unionist, while that gentleman fleeces him ? We believe that he will I- One farmer said to us last week, "I'm not going to bother about the. citation." Before the City Unionists finishes with him he will botljer, but this will be when it is too late to do anything else but howl. The farmer does not, as yet, understand quite how much wool the City Unionist will take off him. The City Unionist will first clip him in one spot and then proceed to shear him in another. There is no finality with the City Unionist 1 Wairarapa Times.