The Wanganui Chronicle, AND PATEA-RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER. "NULLA DIESSINE LINEA." FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1893.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11876, 3 November 1893, Page 2

The Wanganui Chronicle, AND PATEA-RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER. "NULLA DIESSINE LINEA." FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1893.

Mk Geokqe McLean, of Hawera, is a shrewd, sensible settler, ■well-to-do but not illiberal without political ambition, but with oommoa sense notions of his own on some of the pressing public questions of the day, to which he ift in no wise averse to pive expression. In a recent is<ue of the Hawera Star Mr McLean, who is comfortably situated amidst a breadth of broad acres, thus delivered himself with regard to the "bursting up" scheme of the "have nots " ; — "As to the breaking up of big estates, he confessed that he was a bit of a Socialist himself; but still he thought that people who came to the colony in the early days were entitled to hold whatthoy had got, since it was no figure of speech to say that what with hostile natives, unbridged rivers, and other sources of danger they literally carried their lives ia their hands. But though men who had got property by their energy and enterpriso were entitled to hold it, ho did not mean to say that their heirs should have these properties handed to them intact. If the Govern ment thought it necessary, for the benefit of the State, to reduce a property to 1000 acre, 100-acre, or 50-acre lots, then on the death of present owners it could be done without much hardship. But the present Government said, ' We will take your land whether you like it or not,' Such a power in the hands of a Government would ruin the country, because it was based on injustice. No amount of money would compensate a man 'vho had perhaps the tenderost associations with the land which he had made his ova." There is strong common sense and far-seeing wisdom in Mr McLean's remarks. He sees clearly enough that, as population increases in thia country, laige estates will become undesirable, and he frankly acknowledges that it would be the duty of the State to legislate bo as to bring about such a limitation of individual holdings as may prove most advantageous to the public weal. But Mr McLean protests, and with good reason, against men who have braved all kinds of hardships in the early days and paid the price demanded for the land they bought being now branded as enemies to the country, Mr McLean is very rough on the "cooperative works " system, and gives an instance of a long drunken carouse in which a working party pngaged, and which came under his own observation, as an illustration of the reckless waste in which the co-operative workers indulged. "He also objected," he said, "to the manner in which men from the cities, who were utterly unsuitod to country life, were being coddled ; while others had been encouraged to come from Australia, and were soon on charitable aid. Even Bellamy, one of the most adranced •Socialists the world had seen, had said in his book ' Looking Backward ' that while they .vould not allo.v men to starve yet men who would not work but would loaf on the State should be made to wear a livery in order that honest men might point the finger of scorn at them. We, on the othsi hand, gave very many men wa»es they could not earn or would not earn for private employers. And what sort of men were these? He was at Eltham about the end of July. Ifc was on a Friday night, he thought. There woro there a lot of men drinking as hard as they could drink. Some of them were drunk whan he got there t he went to bed ;it 10 o'clook. and at 4 o'clock noi;fc morning found they woro noisil? drunk. Whon he loft thoy woro still drinking.

He asked who they were and was told they were co-operative men, who had been there nearly a weak, Bread and meat and tents had been sent out in advance of them, but; there they remained drinking and carousing. One of them broke a window, and he was told, in answer to a question, that it did not matter what thpy hro!;e, the Government would pay for ail. This was the sort of thing that the settlera had to find .£300,000 a year to pay for. Such matters as these were worthy of attention from farmers." The practical workinp of tlie Government co-operative system, particularly in the prosecution of works which were not under the public eye, has not commended itself to our approval ; but we do not quite see that it is specially responsible for the drunken carouse of which Mr McLean was an eye-witness. Parties of men engaged in drunken bouts under the old contract system, and for aught wo know to the contrary, as fieely as they do now. The waste and depraviby consequent upon the drinking is deplorable enough, but we do not know tliat it is more aggravated under the present system than it was under the old. The weakness of the co-operative system is that it reduces good and bad workmen to a common level, and that it is otherwise unequal and unfair in its operation, men in different parts of the colony getting high or low wages for their work, according to the arbitrary dictum of the engineer or foreman in charge. A naturally hard officer squeezes the men, while an easy-going one, who wishes to make himself popular, is tempted to allow much higher value for work than it ia worth. How unequally the system works is pointed out by Mr Earnshaw, one of the Labour members for Dunedin, who, al" though he favours the co-operative Rystem, speaks in strongly condemnatory strains on the way in which it worlts ■n f . Mr Earnshaw said: — "He objected to men on some lines getting nearly double the money that was paid to men on other lines. A return brought in by the Premier showed that men on the Grey-mouth-Hokitika line made from 9j Id to 11s lid a day, or an average of 10s Bd, while during the same time men on the Otago Central made from4s93dto Bs7sd, or an average of 7s Gd per day. Did they think that was fair ? (A voice : ' .No j it is not.') Did they think there should be a difference of 5s lOd per day between the lowest paid man on the Otago Central and the lowest paid man on the West Coast line ? He did not say that any of the men were too highly paid, but unless these rates were equalised the system would inevitably break down."