CORRESPONDENCE

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2154, 9 August 1907, Page 1

CORRESPONDENCE

MISS 3VIUKCUTT AND THE . AMERICAN WORKMAN. (To tho Editor.) Sir, —Miss Murcubt stated, .regarding the workman of tho United States, that lie was tho best fed. He feeds in restaurants. There is no home life in America. Milk is cheap, vegetables cheap, fish cheap, and li<luor cheap; but meat —read “The •Jungle.” Best housed : They are not housed, but herded together in rooming houses or doss-houses. If you want a bath vou must pay 10 cents at the public baths, as in these rooming, houses there are no fireplaces to heat water. If you want ybur boots brushed you go to the street corner and pay 5 cents or keep a brush and blacking in your “doss-room.” There is no home iifo iii A-siierica. 1 aniiHcs live in this fashion and take their children to parks for the day. The workman of t.he United States is housed worse than any other white man in the world. Best clothed . They wear slop-made clothes made by Chinamen and Japs—it is no place for tailor-made clothes. 1 have heard ivomen speaking and pleading for a share of the Government contract for the American women, but the Government leave it to Chinamen. I.aundrv work is done by Chinese lor the American workman. They make all the overalls or dungarees for the workmen —tliev take the dirty ones and bring them hack clean to the works, doing the washing for 10

Now, Uliss Murcutt did not tell her hearers that 'the American workman worked to keep body and .soul together ten hours a day on seven days a week. Miss Murcutt admires the States’ workmen for working on the day that was set apart hv the Creator that man and beast could rest. When a nation forgets God and works seven days, that nation shall fall. The United States now totters under its iniquitv and slavery. Best paid : A laborer gets 75 cents (3s Gd) a day, litters 2 dollars for JO hours, 7 days i week, blacksmiths 2 to 3 dollars Joi 10 hours. 7 seven days a week. Laborers oil Government works do 10 hours oil 0 days a week. Itnginceis on ilu* railw siy.s v. ork 1 1 lullT-S oil i flays a week. Dairymen work ironi daylight to dark, summer and winter, and get 20 cents a day. Matters m hotels get 20 cents for seven days a week. Dress makers by the day get 1 dollar with car-fare paid; that is for ■ ming to the houses of the upper classes, but dressmaking must bo fust class. America is a good enough place for women if they do not need <o use the needle. There are no factories in the needlework line. Japs have taken the place of white women m domestic work. America does not eniov the franchise, domestic or civic. Heterogeneous population is going to l.e the downfall or America. The Pacific will be the next great seat of war. caused by a struggle for the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God by America s heterogeneous population. iSlueation system: Miss- Murcutt .lid not explain to lier bearers that every man'in the United States of America has to pay 2 dollars to bis employer after 3 months woik. 2-dollar bill is enclosed in the wages envepole, and 20 per cent is collected bv- the employer- for the collection of same, if you work m throe States in twelve months, you pay 0- dollars, mills is their education system. New Zealand is God’s own country. The workman is fed. boused, and paid better than any other workman under the sun. Eight hours a day, and the seventh to do as he chooses, and he should he careful that he retains Ins glorious position, so that no platform speaker will induce the New Zealander to allow the heterogeneous population to break our System down, but I adhere to the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of -mail at a distance and pt home,

The drunkard must learn to say “No,” or go under.. Hi England working men and tradesmen are in a far bettor position than tlie American. Workmen in England aro treated as workmen and not as ,slaves. —I nm, etc. A WORKER. August Bth.

THE LAND QUESTION

To tlie Editor. Sir, —In this morning’s paper an

Auckland correspondent points out the Socialistic views of Air. Laurenson.. Tlmt ho is a single-taxer of the first water we all know, but when he states that tho proposed new graduated tax (which lie wants lowered to copnnenco at £5,000) is put on to stop the aggregation of lands, he is wrong, ft is being put on by tho Government with the intention of lowering the value of land all round and to compel tho large landowners to put their land on the market. The Govern-

ment, at the same time, is proposing to limit the number of buyers by passing a law prohibiting anyone owing over £15,000 worth of land, unimproved value, becoming a purchaser. This means that a fanner owning 000 acres of agricultural land would be debarred from competing. If this law is passed the amount will again lie lowered, making the number of buyers still fewer, so that eventually the Governmeiit will be about the only buyers as tho limit ivillAuafei apply to them,-, so that iii tlie distfjflßj future we nmjf: oxpeet to see-* land State owned. This is wiio^^P

present Government are driving at and it will be a bad day for New Zealand if it over takes place. To prove my statement, re aggregation of estates, 1 will quote you some figures which lately appeared in tho Otago Daily ’Times, showing the number of estates in New Zealand in 1902 and 1905, and I believe tliero has been several largo estates cut up since:—

Acres 1902 1905 30,000 to. 40,000 ... 21 ... 14 40,000 to 50,000 ... 9 ... 8 50,000 to 75,000 ... 12 ... 8 75,000 to 100,000 ... G ... 4 00,000 to 150,000 ... 2 ... 0 150,000 and over ... 3 ... 1

The number of estates have thus been reduced from 53 to 35, showing that there is really no cause for the extra turn of the screw that Air.

Laurenson is so willing to give. It s also a fact that during those four years the number of freeholders in-’l-eased by 1333, and there were only four of those whose estates were over 1,000 acres.

I consider it the height of presumption for anyone like Air. Laurenson, ivlio 'knows nothing about farming, to come here and talk on the land question ; it would do him good to have a bush section in the backblocks and have to clear it himself. If such a

calamity happened to him I feel sure ie would alter his opinion about the freehold, unearned increment, etc. He would then think that the man

that had improved it had more right to it than tlie State, or the unborn millions of 999 years hence, that he is so anxious to provide for. AVe are getting too many of these professional carpet bag politicians in the House—men who toil not, neither do they spin. Have these “carpet baggers” over contributed a £ towards the millions wc export every year? Yet to hear them talking you would think they were the making of the country instead of being only the fly on the wheel. AYhat sort of legislation can you expect from the present Government when you see practical farmers

like Mr. Massey excluded from the Lands Committee and men like Air. Laurenson put on? Yours, etc., FARAIER.

[Our correspondent is apparently aware that the Government has

abandoned its proposals dealing with the direct limitation of the amount of land to be owned by individuals.— Ed.]