The Club Smoking Room

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 3, 15 July 1908, Page 4

The Club Smoking Room

By

HAVANA

THE club,” remarked the cynic, “is the one refuge offered to man from the eternal feminine. In these days when women threaten

to oust us from most of our comfortable posts, it is grateful and comforting, as the advertisement hath it, to feel that here at least we are secure for the present from the dangers of female invasion. How poor old Asquith must long for the cosy security of a Pall-Mall smoking-room, when he is being pursued by a mob of howling suffragettes. The new woman has appropriately enough found a champion in a lady named New. This Miss New advocates the throwing of a bomb into the camp of the enemy. Perchance she merely means by this that she is contemplating matrimony with some unlucky male.” © © © “I have greater sympathy,” said the journalist, “with the amiable exponent of women’s suffrage, who advocated the more peaceful and more pleasing process of squeezing. ‘Let us resorb,’ she pleaded, “to squeezing.” An excellent motto for the more young and graceful of her sex to follow. To be squeezed by the average advocate of women’s rights is not, I admit, a very cheerful prospect, but I could reconcile myself to the suggested method for gaining adherents if I might choose my own partners. The suffragettes have done much to liven up London for the influx of foreign visitors drawn thither by the great Franco-British Exhibition. It seems a shame to put them in gaol, unless the proprietors of variety entertainments are feeling aggrieved at this new invasion of their rights as licensed purveyors of farce.” © © © “Talking of names,” put in the politician, “the debate in the Legislative Council the other day seemed quite apostolic. We had Luke and Paul holding the floor in the debate on the Arbitration Act. There is one feature in connection with all these labour troubles that I think we are apt to overlook, and that may eventually prove more serious than we expect. Already men are asking me what they are to do with their boys. With the best intention in the world, and with the object of doing away with the many obvious abuses of the apprentice system, we limited the number of apprentices in any business to one apprentice to every three workmen. The result is that we are finding it increasingly hard to get our sons taught trades, and workmen are coming in from outside to take the places that should by rights belong to the New Zealanders. I don’t fancy lam particularly selfish in objecting to legislation which tends to benefit foreigners at our expense.” © © © “I fancy,” answered one of our country members, “that facilities for apprenticeship should be extended. The old Bystem, whan no limit was placed on the number that could be employed, undoubtedly led to grave abuse. I can remember when troops of boys and girls were employed for little or no remuneration, and then turned adrift when the time came for paying them wages. All

the same, it is not very encouraging to find so many workers from outside taking the place of our own sons in many of our staple industries. The Shearers’ Union admits that fully three-quarters of its members are Australians. Pretty much the same state of things exists, I believe, in other unions. I know we are expected to believe in a federated Empire, aind all that sort of thing; and I am as glad to see an Australian here as anyone else; but I do think we should provide for our own young fellows first. We might add a ‘preference to New Zealanders’ clause to our existing preference to unionists.” © © © “I presume,” put in the banker, “that I am supposed to look on all these questions from the point of view of the hated and bloated capitalist, and, therefore, our labour friends would consider me prejudiced. But bankers do not regard things solely from one side. They have to look ahead, and see what is coming for all parties. In making an advaaice on any security, we have to weigh the chances of a rise or fall in values. Now, this has struck me very forcibly of late. If the farm labourers insist on exorbitant rates of pay, the farmer will be forced to the wall. The value of his land will enormously depreciate, creditors will call in advances, and a general feeling of insecurity will be engendered. For whatever we may do in purely manufacturing industries, in farming we must approximate our rates of pay to those which obtain in other countries. We compete in an open market without’ any benefit of a preferential tariff.” © © © “Of course,” replied an old settler, “you speak with wider knowledge of values than I do; but the way I look at things is this. Farming land in New Zealand is at present very high—in some cases as high as £4O an acre. But with things as they are at present, we do pretty well, as our values are not very much above the value of similar land in other countries. If our men get slightly higher wages they probably do more work and more intelligent work. But let there be any serious increase in the cost of labour, and we are face to face with this position. Good land in England can be had at a yearly rental of £1 an acre, close to the world’s markets, and with labour plentiful at 18/ to 20/ a week. In the Argentine conditions are much the same, since though labour is cheaper, it is not so efficient. You may put down the capital value of the land in both countries at about £25 an acre. Tf we raise the price of farm labour to double what it is in England, and pay more for our land, how are we going to make farming pay? You can’t apply to farm labour she same rules that you can to a factory.” © © © “The trouble is,” commented the padre, “that we look to Parliament to do everything for us instead of leaving a little to common-sense. The Britisher even proposes that Parliament shall decide what time it is, and the poor working man is to be cheated of one full hour of bed by the simple expedient of putting on the hands of the clock. I sup-

pose in the suggested Daylight Saving Bill it will be left for the Radical Commons to set the hands of the clock forward in summer, and to the Lords will be left the congenial task of putting them back again in the winter.”