BRITAIN'S WORKERS

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14586, 8 February 1921, Page 3

BRITAIN'S WORKERS

WRONG SPIRIT IN INDUBTRY. (From Our London Correspondent.) LONDON, December 16. If some organ of the Radical press had told its readers that this would be the "blackest Christmas on record" for the East-end of London, it would have limn charged with causing disaffection. promoting discontent amongst his Majesty's subjects and what not. We are no'l sure whether, under the still active provisions of Dora, lie might not he liable lo "death or worse punishment." Bui the statement is made by a leading Conservative paper, whose fidelity Fo the things that are, including the Lloyd George Ministry, nobody dare question. The unfortunate thing is that it is right. In this country, which was to be made fit for heroes to live In, there is a vast volume of human misery; and no measures taken by Government, municipal bodies or private persons are doing more than touching the fringe of it. It Is remarkable how, under this Government, not only have there been more tumults, political and industrial, than any other Government of modern times has seen here, but that it. also sees the working masses in a condition of distress such as the country has rarely, if ever, previously known. We do not hesitate to state that fact as strongly as it can be stated, because it Is patent and incontrovertible. Who or what may be held to blame Tor- it can only, of course, be a matter of opinion. A great many blame the Government, but probably finite as many attribute our social woes to tin" exactions of the upper and wellorganised workers, men who have good wages—not necessarily as good as they ought to be, but still good—and who ask for more under conditions which dislocate industries just at a time when every ounce of our energy, and also of our all-round forbearance, are needed in order that we may fight our way out of the economic morass into which the war lias plunged us. These exactions have meant a woeful waste and a big addition to the grievously heavy cost of living. They have been as mischievous as any of the petty tricks, subterfuges ami breaches of faith which, when its history is written, will tie found on the record of a Government of Tories with an ersl-wljjfe Radical as political instrument-in-chief. The Wrong Spirit. !"or there is a wrong spirit abroad in industry. Why, even tiie drapers' assistants have had a ballot in order to determine whether they should not go on strike, in support of a claim for higher wages, just, when things were busy in Christmas trade, it is understood that Ihe vote 'went against the proposal, but that it should ever have been entertained is the significant thing. The interests of the employers and of the buying public—for in this huge city, be the distress of the masses what it may, Ihere is always a buying public with well-lined purses-—count for nothing where such a spirit is. We do not suggest that these soft-job people arc yvlthout any right to claim more pay, Mil that until we find som * reasonali;'- means of hearing such claims and submitting them to an adjudication which will in good faith he accepted, we are out for trouble and always in peril of it. Those qualified to speak on the subject say that there have never hern so many unemployed nor more men working short-time than there are In East London to-day. At Beiiinall Green something like 10 per cent, of the workers are either unemployed or doing only casual and very intermittent work, so In other parts of the East. But the trouble is also in the West. So many are out of work in the Royal Borough of Kensington that the Australian Conservative who represents that district in Parliament—Mr /Alan Burgoyne, M.P.—in sending his contribution to a relief movement, expresses approval of a house-to-house begging campaign, and says, "1 hope no house wilt turn them away emptyhanded." Of course, he does not like the proceeding, but he is not fool enough to suppose that the workless men and their families are going to sit down quietly and die of starvation. Leas! of all when they read, as some may have done, immediately after a report on their distress, the intimation thai, a citizen who died a few weeks ago left £200,000. Intimations of the kind, relating to estates ranging from £20.000 or £30,000 lo half a million, appear here every week.