Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1890. The Labourer.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 30 October 1890, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1890. The Labourer.

How sick the decent working man | must h- i,f the cant and humbug spiken in Ids name. Under what | evil star ha - lie he.-n born that his ■ md n ; *,v i- to he smothered amongst I rhe idle, drunken, mischievous class ' who now use his name to forward their own dishonest designs to secure

a lazy, improvident life at his expense. The decent labourer, and ' fortunately for the colony, there are many of them, are the colony's . truest pride, and the hardworking small farmer to-cl L y has been one of their number rxcw years back. Like Longfellow's Village Rhu-u smith — " Toiling : rejoicing, sorrowing, Onward through life he goes, Each morning sees some task begun, Each evening sees it close, Something attempted, something done, That cam's a night's repose." But the so-called labourers leaders ignore all that, not a word of advice is offered as to how their condition in life might be bettered by industry, temperance, and thrift, but thoy pander to the lowest instincts of the lowest class by proposing to secure for them the highest wages with less work, less taxation with no responsibilities, and prodigal living without extra cost. It is bad for these men, and much worse for the colony, that persons can be found so anxious to secure a seat in Parliament that they are prepared to endorse such a programme, in the hope thereby of sec iring election. Would it not be truer manliness, truer statesmanship, to ponit out how much these men could do of their own notion to secure a comfortable position, than to propose a general demoralisation to secure a general uniformity. If the Unionist programme should ever be achieved, then the respectable man will be detained in that condition of life into wliich he has been born, he will not bs permitted to work harder, or longer than the weakest and idlest of his mates, ho will be debarred from obtaining a home and property of his own, and but a little farther'extension of such a programme, will prevent him from saving a .few pounds to ease his declining years. The man who spends his month's wages, earned by hard slogging, and dissipates them within a day or two by hard drinling, is to be the future arbitrator of what his fellow-lobourer sha 1 do. The small property owners are to work their bodies in toil to pay the expenses of the Government, and to rind the cost of prisons, asylums, and hospitals for these delightful characters, as a punishment for the observance of decency and thrift in their younger days. Surely this is an astonishing programme to place before the electors.