Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 29, 9 November 1888, Page 1

Current Topic s

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

THE SWEATING BYSTBM.

al^rm. Here is the colony, not nearly a century old, and yet evils prevail in if, that are the opprobrium of countries aged many centuries. Bat do we not blame the centuries often in the wrong, imputing to their mouldering decay the fungus growth that is tke fruits of rottenness newly generated ? We are too apt to console ouraelreß by blaming the past for evils that exist, but which, in truth > are the effect of present meanness, and selfishness, and hardness of heart. It is not necessary, tor example, to look back to feudal times for the origin of that insatiable desire to have work cheaply dons, which is oae of the characteristics of the present day. We need look no further for its fount and origin than to tha baseness of the human nature that everyone of as bears ia his own person, aad which, unless it be curbed, and disciplined, and practised in the ways of honour and uprightness, must ba prolific in all that is base and bad. On the contrary, if we look to the world's past, we shall find examples that might put the present sordid age to shame. To what wbb the developernent of the arts due in the middle ages, but to the generosity and bounty of the princes and great nobles who patronised and supported the artists ? Had they looked for cheapness as the chief thin g, and considered that their duty and highest virtue lay in sparing their purses, the world would have suffered severely, and its civilisation would have been retaidcd. But they considered the workman worthy of his hire, and honoured and rewarded him. We are told many tales of their cruelty ; of the terrible doings that took place when the lord c£ the manor had the right and power of li r e and death over his vassals. But, comparing them with our modera society, whose wealthier classes have no such right, but without it> virtually, in many cases exercise such a power, perhaps the advantage lie* with the lords of the feudal ages. That the sweating system, therefore, has obtained a footing, and even a firm hold, in tbis new country of ours, though it may be a subject for regret, is not one for astonishment. We do not, in fact, know of any place in the world where the soil is better prepared for such an ugly growth than in these colonies. We know of noplace in which the worship of wealth is more barefaced or more abject. Some eminent visitor to these colonies — the late Mr. Trollope, if we remember aright — in writing of what he had seen, gave it as his opinioa that what he called " hatworship " was unknown here — his meaning b_'ing that the poor man did not take off his hat in the presence of the wealthy man. But if the poor man among us keeps his hat on his head in the presence of the wealthy man, his superior, it is because he lacks the good manners that distinguish bis class elsewhere. Tne abjection of his mind in the presence of wealth is not less, but often much greater, than what it is elsewhere — and there is no part of the world where wealth, and weal'.h alone, without oae single worthy or respectable quality to back it, obtains a greater degree of worship. Bat where the wealthy man is all-powerful and the poor man abject and dependent, systems hka the sweating system must flourish and increase. As to the causes of the sweating system, apart from the desire that exists in the base and selfish mini to maku aa great a profit ai possib'e of the neighbour—forgetful of the awful truth that one of the sins which cry to heaven for vengeance is that of defrauding the labourer of his hire — his just hire, the true worth of his work and not the pittance that a dira necessity may perhaps force him to accept, it would be no easy task to trace them closely and completely. Something is probably due to the effects produced by machinery ; the theory being that labour is thus liberated from certain pursuits to find a ready occupation in others, but tha fact being apparently that the labour thus liberated finds no ready occupation, but is obliged to accept starvation wages wherever they may offer. Machinery, for instance, often gives employment to children and sends men and women to look for it where it is not to be found. The problem of the machine against the man, in short, is one which still remains to be solved, and whosa solution, moreover, cannot be much longer delayed. Something alao,

The revelations recently made concerning the prevalence of the sweating system in Dunedin, Christchurch, and Auckland, are such as must fill the mind of every honourable man with shame and

perhaps, is due to tha multiplied wants of modera households, which require an outlay that, ia the majority of cases, it is not always easy to provide for. Many causes, no doubt, contribute to a result that ii deplorable beyond description. But as we have said, the moral came is the principal one. It exists in tha meanness and selfishness — from which the working classes that themselves the sufferers are by no means free — that take nothing uto consideration but tbeir own gratification, and whioh too olten, unfortunately, are looked upon at admirable qualities — prudence, thri it, and all the rest of it. The sweating system at oar doors gives us good reason for humility, and* le t us hope, a spur towards repentance aad amendment.

A QUEER IKPBOVBMENT.

in New York brought omt by the Committee appointed by Congrew to inquire into the matter, about the worst have been those relating to the situation of the Italian immigrants. Here is an example :— " Marie Fadrizi, an Italian wife, who, although bat 17 years of age, has had three children, was placed on the stand to show the wretched condition of and low wages earned by people of her class. She cam* from Sessa, Italy, seven years ago, and was married in this city three years ago. Her husband works on a farm somewhere out of the city. Hers is one of four families that live togethtr in four rooms in a tene* ment house, No. 116. Mulberry street. There are fifteen people lirlnf in fonr rooms. They all use the one kitchen, which is the only room in which there is a window opening to the outer air. From the sleep* ing rooms windows open to the hallway. Five people sleep in tha small room that she occupies. She works as a finisher on men's clothes, and is paid ten cents a dozen garments. By working hard from 5 o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock at night she is enabled to earn 40 cents, and she is perfectly satisfied with tlm, and would rather live in Mulberry street as sha does than return to Italy. — Catherine Fadrizi, the sister-in-law of the last witness, testified that she also lives in the house 116 Mulberry street. She is employed at sewing collars on men's coats. She does not have steady work, she said, bat when she has work she toils from 3 o'clock in the morning until 11 o'clock at night to earn from 40 to 50 cents a day. On some days when her children are sick or troublesome she rises at 2 o'olock in the morning." — But. notwithstanding all this, the testimony of tha women was that they preferred their present condition to that ia which they had lived at home. They did not desire to go back to Italy, they said, the country having no attractions for them :—": — " If I can get three dozen coats to do a day I am satisfied and can support my two children," said Catherine Fadrizi. But what must be the state of things in Italy when that thus brought to light in 8o8 o far preferable to it, Italians America is preferring to submit to these hardships in addition to exile from their native landf The immigration, meantime, goes on, and this year over 50,000 more anfortunates have bee a expelled from their country to crowd these dens of the New York sweaters. What, then, we ask once more, must be the state of Italy under the reign of union and freedom and the improved conditions of the period 1

A bids light has been thrown on the condition of things in Italy by recent events in America, which brings into strong relief the benefit! of the improved regime. Among the details of cheap alien labour

Our only hope, meantime, for the annihilation of the sweating system lies in the working-mea themselves. Not the working men of the Australasian

THE COMING CHAMPION.

Colonies, however, who seem unfortunately rery unfitted for any task of the kind, and who, so far as thej show any disposition to act in union at all, are apparently disposed to yield themselves upas blind and undiscriminating followers to leaders as blind and undiscriminating as themselves, and often to become the tools and dupes of men with the proverbial bee in their bonnets. Our hope ia in the working-men of America. The old story tells us that, if the horse knew his own strength, man could never make a servant of him, and the working-man is something like the horse. Were h« aware of his true standing-place and capable of making proper use of his powers, no abuse could affect his position. It is the signs that, in the United States, he is rapidly attaining to all he needs, that we hail as a token of progress and a hopeful earnest for the immediate future. The celebration which tojk place, for example, in all the great citie3 of the States on September 3, Labour Day, as they call

it, was particularly iignificant. There the various trades and labonr organisations were brought into contact with one another, and had the opportunity of personally judging of one another's qualifications •ad becoming impressed by mutual confidence and respect. There was among these men, moreover, no wild suggestion of anarchic Motions, no visionary incentives to form a Utopia baaed on Socialistic theories, nor any of the fads and fancies that we hear occasionally propounded in our own colonies. Declarations of contentment with and adherence to their own excellent Constitution and of a desire to see all such abuses as might exist amended in accordance with itl provisions were what was heard from them. All tbeir conduct was that of moderate, sensible, men, on whom a nation might well depend with confidence for its future. It is to these msn. therefore, we look to give a pattern to the world, and to discover and insist upon the remedy for every abuse that affects the working-man's position. The workiag-man of America who repudiates all sympathy with the anarchic masses of Continental Europe and who is emancipated from the dependent, timorous, spirit of the working-man of Great Britain ii the hope of the modern world, and must prove the champion to overthrow the sweating system and every other evil of the kind.

THE WESTMISSTEK CONFESSION.

of Otago and Southland, and, so many learned and eminent divines having been engaged in discussing it within our hearing, it would be natural to conclude that extreme stupidity alone oottld prevent any man's arriving at right conclusions. Are we, therefore, in a position to pronounce a well-informed and settled opinion •m the Westminster Confession, such as should fill the mind of a ditciple who had sat attentively at the feat of a whole assembly of learned and sapient Gamaliels. We acknowledge that such is not the oats, and that we ate in a complete maze, and, so to speak, do mot know whether we are standing on oar head or oar heels ia the matter. Are we, for example, to receive as an authority the light and fattive Mr. Will, who takes Topsy for his pattern, and has set out from the Confession, as from the State of Kentucky, with large ■argias to rill up, not with black flash and bone of course, but with ■piritual understanding, and expansion in righteousness. " I 'specks I've growed," pleasantly observes Mr. Will, in affirming his right to depart, always in the straight direction, from the Confession of Faith, ■c signed thirty-five years ago. Don't bother me, replies Diomede to oW Nmtor'a boastful prosing. We're tea time? bstter men th«n ever our fathers were. Could the fathers of the Kirk return, they must recognise in the Key. Mr, Will a man of many times their stature. Shall we then take the light-hearted, pleasant-tongued, highly -sxpauded Mr. Wnl for our teacher, or must we 'return into the past and take up our position behind, let us say, the conservative and archaic, if not completely fossil, Mr. A. C. Begg ? Mr; Begg expand or depart from the measure of the elders. He would burst first, and the Kirk would he spattered all over with disjecta membra breathing indignantly the odour of outraged sanctity. Mr. A. C. Bogg is ready to go back in spirit and eit in condemnation once more on that Hemphill, whose case, as Dr. Duiilop, Professor of Theology, informs us, was decisive over one hundred and fifty yeara ago as to the impossibility of salvation for theheathen,oroathatof one Professor Bimp9OD,who, some years before, was pronounced a hereiic for holdiog that all infants dying in their infancy might be saved. Mr. Begg and the fathers are at one. No State of "Kintuck" for hint, no spiritual expansion, no growth ia anything, no salvation for the heathen, but perdition without stint or modification for unelect babies. Verily the fathers of the Kirk taught Christian doctrines with a vengeauca and quite as vengefnlly do those who walk in the fathers' steps maintain them. On the whole, then perhaps it is just as well to remain in some degree of confusion with regard to the Westminster Confess.on. Thoroughly to understand it amd enter into its spirit would hardly have an improving influence on the Christian mind. Therefore, illogical as their position may be, let us congratulate those members of the Synod who have followed with Mr. Will and " growed " pleasantly and with jollity in broader mould — leaving to their less fortunate brethren a hide-bound condition that is grim and relentless. The lesson we have derived from the discuiBion of the Synod bears on the impossibility for falsehood to stand the test of time or to prove of lasting influence. — " For if this counsel or this work," says Gamaliel, " be of men, it will come to nought."

The opening of the Parnell Commission on Monday' September 17, was not attended by any very bnl*

A COMICAL TBIBUNAL.

liant promise of 6uccess on the part of the Times

In fact, if in this case nlso the old rule holds good that coming events cist their shadows before, the defeat of the Times might have been confidently predicted. The Judges, or at least (Sir James Hannen, the President of the Commission, showed a disposition to act with impartiality, and did not make any effort to favour the Times or to fall in with arrangements lo suit its con-

Wb should now know a good deal more about the Westminster Confession than we ever knew before It has been discussed in a most open, not to say a loud and violent way, by the Presbyterian Synod

venience, In the first place Sir James defined the limit of the Commission as extending only to those charges and allegations made in the action taken by Mr. O'Donnell, and to the persons so accused. He further decided that it devolved upon Ihn Times to tender such evidence as it might have in support of the charges made. Where the Times, however, showed the particular weakness of its case, was in the quibbling replies of Mr. Graham its Ceunsel, to the questioning of the Judge regarding the substantiation of the charges. This occurred on the reading by Sir Charles Russell, Mr. Parnell's Counsel, of patsages from " Parnellism and Crime," showing the indefinite nature of the charges made, and his demand that plain language instead of insinuations should be employed. This demand was met by Mr. Graham with an objection against making the Times parlies to the suit. " Tou are here," said Sir James Hannen, " representing the defendants in the action. Do you propose to substantiate any charges ? " "We propose to give you all the evidence we can," was the evasive reply. "Do you propose to substantiate any charges,"again asked Sir JamesHannen. " We will give you evidence, answered Mr. Graham, " which will tend to substantiate the charges." On further examination the Counsel could not tell what charges he referred to, nor the particular persons against whom charges were or could be made. All he waß able to do in the matter was to accuse the organisation and to point out that certain persons were mentioned in " Parnellism and Crime." Sir James Hannen, however, would not consent to remain content with this, but gave it as his final opinion that particulars of charges should be given, adding that, if the Tines did not give these particulars, it would be the duty of the Court to oollect them for themselves. Never before, in fact, has such a case come before a tribunal, and never has a tribunal been so constituted or so required to conduct a trial. The plaintiff has no case, cannot d«fiae in what it is that ke kas been ill-used. — The judge, who is judge and jury, prosecutor and detective, all combined, is required to find out the offence that had been committed, if offence there has been : — to detect the criminal who has committed it if such a criminal has any existence, and then to arraign him and pronounce his guilt. The whole affair seems a mockery not only of justice but cf common sense, of gravity, of all that is respectable, and, among the wonders of the age, hardly a greater one can be found than that connected with the sanction by Parliament of such a farce .