THE SWEATING SYSTEM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 8, 14 June 1889, Page 17

THE SWEATING SYSTEM.

HONG the more alarming circumstances of the day we must regard the necessity that has arisen in this colony for opposing the worst system that has been developed by ages of competition, by over-population, and by a thousand evil causes, in the older countries of the world . We allude to the sweating system, concerning which a public meeting was held in Dunedin on Friday evening. The speeches made at this meeting were bold and fervent, and in almost all of them there was evident a determination to combat the evil to the utmost extreme. One speaker, particularly, blamed the warehousemen whom, in effect, he accused of a disposition to thwart the remedial measures proposed. Another proposed a motion, which was unanimously carried, appealing to the Government for the appointment of a Royal Commission to consider the question, and laid stress upon the publicity of the details to be bo brought out. This proposal, moreover, had the advantage of precedent, for such a commission has recently been held in London, with the result of bringing out very harrowing revelations that would never otherwise be made. The question is certainly one with which the Government should deal. Sir Robert Stout, who proposed the motion alluded to, was undoubtedly quite right in arguing that it was the duty of the Government,as representing the organised community, to search out the canker that was destroying the people's health, and to apply the remedy. The aspects, indeed, under which this matter may be regarded are almost infinite. Sir Robert Stout, in his speech very ably dealt with that relating to the physical condition of the people. " They could not permit their people's health to be destroyed," he said, for example, and most truly said, " but if they had young girls working ten, twelve, or fourteen hours a day, striving to make a living, with insufficient food perhaps and clothing, and if they thought they were going to rear up a good race in this country— merely from a physical point of view — they were making a great mistake. Now, he believed this sweating system was undermining, was ruining, the physical health of the people, and that it it were not stopped our young people would not be like what their fathers and mothers were. Except we had healthy factory life we could never produce a good race." And what again concerning the liberty of which every British community makes its chief boast ? If men are, for instance, obliged by law to educate their children and thus to give them ever}' power of exercising the privileges of free and independent men, is it consistent that they should be permitted by law virtually to sell themselves and their children into slavery ? Let us take as an illustration the case of that woman whom the Rev. Mr. Waddbll, another of the speakers, cited as mentioned to him by one of the warehousemen whom he condemned so warmly. "As one of these gentlemen put it to me, said the speaker : ' If a woman comes and offers to do work for me at a less rate than I am paying, am I to be denied the privilege of making a profit ? ' I said : ' Certainly. That's just what we want to do. We want to set limits to the fierceness of this competition.' "—" — But this woman to all intents and purposes sells herself into slavery. She can only undersell the workwoman she supplants by voluntarily entering into a most unwomanly bondage, and if she has a family depending on her she sells them at the same time that she sells herself. The claims of liberty, therefore, as well as those of physical health demand that the labourer may be protected even from himself and from the sacrifice that necessity may impose upon him. The argument, however, is capable of being enlarged upon far more widely than we have time or space to pursue it. The duty, meantime, devolves upon the public generally of forestalling or co-operating with whatever action • Government may be inclined to take, and of exerting themselves of their own accord to put down the evil. We are not concerned to defend the warehousemen from the charges that have been brought against them, and we are convinced especially that Mr. G. Fenwick hi mentioning, as a result of the inquiries so laudably instituted by the Otago Daily Times, the name of one particular firm was fully justified in doing so by the facts of which he possessed information. But still we fear that, however bad may have been the behaviour of theie gentlemen, they arc not wholly to blame.

Mr. B. Hallkkstbin, indeed, gave a partial explanation, which should go a good way, in the demand that exists for cheap goods. While this demand exists an effort will certainly be made to supply it, and, it is to be feared, that it may even succeed in no small degree in neutralising the remedial measures that the Government may at length take. Whatever is to be done, therefore, if it is to prove successful, the public must co-operate with it, even at the cost of some self denial. But if the truth be generally admitted that the welfare of the State and of the whole population depends on the overthrow of the sweating system, this should be made comparatively easy to us all.