Real Prosperity

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 3, 19 June 1886, Page 3

Real Prosperity

We must not measure our prosperity by the amount of our debt. We must measure by the comfort r and happiness of the pe,pple at large. And notwithstanding the de- i pression ,in parts . of the colony, the colony as, a whole, is more prosperous than when the public works ' policy was begun ; and I maintain there is a larger amount of comfort diffused j amongst, at any rate the working classes, than there was then. And .. what .is the complaint we so often here? Why, the complaint that the working classes are getting too much money, and. they will n«t , work for less than 7s a day. That is the complaint of employers ef labor, mark you ; and notwithstanding every effort on thjbir part, notwithstanding all their power; and a kitid-of Becret combination, they are entirely ".unable to reduce the' wages of the working classes. What dqes that mean ?. It means this— that the supply of labor of jthe rigit kind, I do not say Jof a certain, kind—- is not more than: the demand, and I say you must measure the prosperity x>f a country essentially by.th 6 amount'of comfort enjoyed by the working classes.' ; [Mr Ballance in the 'np-cbnfidence ;d s ebate.- T Hansard. ]