Sweated Industries.

Progress, 1 October 1907, Page 431

Sweated Industries.

New Zealand is getting an object lesson in the matter of " sweated" industry, which has in due course reached Wellington. Here thousands of our citizens have vkited the Town Hall and studied the exhibit which has been travelling round the Dominion ever since it left the Christchurch Exhibition, where it formed one of the most interesting and most impoitant sights ot that remarkable show. We have all read the " Song of the Shirt," we have most of us thrilled with horror at the abominations which necessitated the passing of the first Factory Acts and Mining Acts of Great Britain. But until we saw the details of the exhibition of " sweated " industries at the Town Hall, few of us were aware that in the industrial conditions of Great Britain of the present day there are things every bit as bad as anything in the record of man's inhumanity to man which impelled Tom Hood to write and Lord Shaftesbury to act. It is an exhibition of various articles ot trade, apparel, hardware, bric-a-brac, and other things, very creditable to look at. chaa, most serviceable conforming in every respect outwardly to a high standard. The inward rottenness and corruption is realised only by perusal of the terrible particulars attached to each detail of wages paid and hours worked. The aggregate of these make up a black record of weekly wages of from five to ten shillings for a daily "grind" of ten to sixteen hours' work. Between the Jines of that record lie spread out all the miseries of " poverty, hunger and dirt," making the lives of thousands of human creatures little better than lingering death, sapping the strength of fathers and mothers, stunting the growth of children, debasing bodies, degrading

souls, shutting out hope — the most valued and blessed of all the possessions of man here below. One thing this terrible exhibition has done, and done well. It has justified all the advanced labour laws of this Dominion. It was the one comfortable reflection of all who went thoughtfully past that awful collection of the fruits of torture, that here in New Zealand we have laws which effectually prevent the occurrence of such barbarities. This country has reflected upon the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, and determined to stop the uncontrolled working of that specious maxim. The labour laws are the result and, thanks to the labour laws, there can never be [such a spectacle from the products of local industry as is being afforded daily from those of the industry of the outsider. At all events, it is good in the presence of these exhibits to reflect that such horrors are impossible among us. A remark o-\erheard at the Exhibition suggests another train of thought. The remark was to the effect that it was a pity there were not some nice cheap things like those to be had in our own shops. That turns one's mind at once to the tariff just passed by the Legislature, with the query " does the tariff do anything to keep out ' sweated ' goods ?" Now, the tariff has been well described as a monument of industry, as the embodiment of knowledge and the successful remover of monopolies ; as the reducer of taxation on the necessities of life to a most important extent ; as the essence of fiscal moderation and sound finance • as a thing which has called forth the best combination yet seen of high qualities of statesmanship and leadership of men. But there is one thing which has not been said of the taiiff, and that is, that it can keep out the products of " sweated " industries. The tariff cannot keep them out, because the labour conditions of their manufacture must set all tariffs at nought. This brings us to the natural conclusion that the labour laws which here prevent the sweating evil will leave the field clear to the sweated industries which get past the tariff. So that whatever benefit these laws may be to the local labour, they will undoubtedly exact from local labour the price of unfair competition. How much of a discount on the benefit this price exacted may be, is for practical experience to determine. In all probability the effect will not be fatal to local industry. Nevertheless, this price is a price which ought not to be exacted from local industry, and it is an encouragement to the unpiincipled sweater of the old world which ought not to be held out to his barbarism. If tariffs can not deal with him, some more direct and really drastic method should be tried.