The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1890. Labor Troubles

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 32, 30 August 1890, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1890. Labor Troubles

It will be to the advantage of both sides, whether employer or employed, that a crisis has arrived which may be looked upon as the culminating point of the difficulty between capital and labor. We can only hope that wise councils will prevail, and that no violence will result whether in the name of Law and Order, or in the name of any body of men who are opposing themselves factiously to these. We observe with some dissatisfaction that in one of the sister colonies three thousand special constables have been sworn in to guard against possible rioting by the men who have been taken from their ordinary wage-earning pursuits at the command of the autocrats who rule them with a rod of iron — the labor councils. We think this is a gross error of judgment. Special constables are not discreet, and even the smallest act of indiscretion may lead to a collision, the consequences arising from which no man can foretell. We believe that the local authorities who have done this thing, have acted according to their lights, but it is more than possible that one timid or fearsome man in authority may have leavened his fellows with his own terrors of imaginery evils, and induced them to commit an act which their cooler judgment will afterward condemn. If extra police assistance were necessary it would be an easy matter to increase their existing numbers by fresh en lietments — a thing which could be done quietly without exciting angry comment as in the case of calling out an array of special constables. There is one thing that appears to be lost sight of in this combat between capital and labor, and that is the fact of the existence of a great third party composed of the majority whose servants both of them are, that is the general pub lie, or what may be called the " paying party." As a matter of fact the latter have not been consulted at all, and if we note the progress of the discussions which are taking place, neither side ever makes the slightest allusion to the potentiality which is the cause of the existence of both master and servant. Whatever is done, whether for good or evil, both will have to give an account of their stewardship, and when the day of reckoning comes we have not the slightest doubt but what stern yet evenhanded justice will be meted out. The battle now being fought has another weak point, common to both sides. Each has apparently absolutely forgotten the exist* ence of their impedimenta or camp eg ipage, in the shape if the wives and children, the mothers and sisters of the contestants. These must be clad and fed whatever happens, but still they must be, as the weakest always are, the very first to suffer from the consequent deprivations. The one thing needed to settle the whole matter is found in the words " mutual concessions." Everything is contained in them. They are the secret of all happiness, and the safeguards against all strife.