The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1892. Labor Troubles

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 58, 3 November 1892, Page 2

The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1892. Labor Troubles

The Americans, and by this term we do not mean that peculiarly disagreeable class of people designated and known as " white washed Yankees, " have always been noted for their plain common sense and shrewdness, where their own material interests were concerned. The recent strikes in that country, and the tyranny of the mobs led by professional agitators, have had the efiect of bringing into activity these excellent characteristics of the nation, and the press are openly encouraging every movement which has for its object the maintainance of law and order, and the encouragement of industrial pursuits and commerce. On this subject the New York Observer says : — " There will need to be new legislation of a stringent character before men, wishing to labor, can have their rights recognised. If our sympathies flow out to the man who wants better pay they ought not to be refused to the man who wants any pay he can get. The time will doubtless come when the " out-of-works " will organise aud demand their innings. Many a man is obliged to support his grown son in idleness because his " union " will not admit him to learn a trade. The unions are committing of all follies the most suicidal, for they are only stimulating quick wiiied men to inventions that "will enable employers to do without them entirely. Nothing has done so much to stimulate invention as the paid agitator. When fathers permit themselves tamely to be ordered out of decent and remunerative employment, they will soon find their own places taken by a boy and a machine. This has happened already in more than one trade, and will be the history of others in days not far off. The labor o£ the world must cease or be performed by a power not subject to the bumptious tyranny of every man anxious to show he can lord it over employer and employe alike." The weak point in this argument appears where it is implied that new labor saving inventions reduce the number of men employed. This is a fallacy which has been exposed over and over again, the real truth being that new inventions create new openings for labor, both skilled and unskilled. As to legislation having much beneficial effect, we are somewhat sceptical. What is really wanted more is the pressure of public opinion on candidates for legislative honors who should be forced to abstain from setting class against class so that in the turmoil thus excited, they may attain their own ambitious ends. The labor agitator and the political charlatan are on a level, to some extent, and should be treated much in the same way. We may, however, go so far as to say that with all his faults and mistaken notions, ifc is possible for a labor agitator to be a well meaning and honest man.