THE LABOUR PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 70, 17 December 1918, Page 5

THE LABOUR PROBLEM

"HIS OWN BOSS." Some years ago I had a house with a large garden. I ran the gamut of nearly every man in tho village without finding n man whom I could keep as a gawlcner (writes Mir. Tivells Dro.v in the "Daily Mail"). They worked gloriously tho first week, indifferently the second week, execrably the third week. It was n backbreaking garden, just too small to bo a two-man garden, just too big to bo a one-man garden. Disgusted with tho villagers, and with my blood up, I put aside all other work to tackle the garden myself. "I'll show them," I vowed, "that one man can tackle this garden!" I roso with the sun and gardened until after darkness. I made such a garden that motorists used to stop their cars to look at it. A friend, older and wiser than I, came to admire the garden. I inveighed against the villagers. "Tlioy all declared," I cried, "that it was' too much for one man. Buit if I, who know i.othing about gardening when I started, have tackled it, why could not they?" My friend turned with a smilo. "My sympathies," he said, ''are with the villagers. it's youir garden, not theirs. That's why you have nearly broken your back in it; that's why you could not expect another man to break his back in it." liises in wages do not 6olvo tho labour problem. There are many men so constituted that, they would rather earn ten shillings as their own masters, or in tho shape of profits, than a pound as servants. There is a cheery, burly netfsvendor in Fleet Stroet whose big voi:o. crying Ihe papers, has been like a ibell-buoy in Ihe iides of that street nt nil hours dudnv for many years. I asked him yesterday what his hours of work are. "I start- nt. ton in tho morning, and I finish at 8.15—0r later," ho said. More than lon hours daily, standing in the street shouting all tho time—haw many men would do this for a master? To this hard worker of Fleet Street T nut Ihe nuestion blunlly: "Assuming that you make an nverivjo f.f Iwo ooumls n wcpl; as vonr own master, would yon. '■nntinue titiub for another mnsler for three pounds a week as --egii.lnr w->ces?" He answered just :is blunlly, "No, I'm blowed if T would.''

And Micro is the solution o f Hie labour problem in a nut.shell.

A lleece of wool Khorn from a sheep ■pastured on the lawn at While House, Washington, l-.5.A., was recently sent to Boston by President Wilson, ami put up for auction, II wa.s finally knocked down to the lloslon Wool Trade Association at lllflfl dollars (JC2OS (is. Bd.) per lb * Woods' Great Peppermint Cure, For Coughs and Colds, never fails.*