Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1903. “11l-Used Words.”

Manawatu Herald, 13 June 1903, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1903. “111-Used Words.”

In the last number of tbs Review of Reviews a “ (iced Australian 19 writes upon the number of phrases that have gone through a process to that which Henry Ward Beecher used to declare divines treated their texts—as a cook prepares a fowl for the oven. They first kill it, next disembowel it; then they stuff it. Our tired friend says the whole of Australasian politics is being resolved into one form or another of industrial legislation; and that legislation revolves round two terms: “ sweating” and the “ minimum wage.” He declares that the dreadful 'word “ sweating ” is being utilised for curious purposes, and the result is that while one thing is talked about, another thing is meant. Referring to the findings of the Victorian Wages Board instead of securing the means of existence to every worker the Board means the highest possible sum which, with the casting vote of a sympathetic chairman can be extorted from the employer 1 As to the “ Undesirable Immigrants ” the Tired one says the debate was “ riddled with cant and insincerity, it is mottled with the veriest foolishness ; it bristles with examples of decent phrases turned to what may be called indecent uses.” A “ White Australia ” has no friend in Tired Australian, who exposes the hollowness of the cry- The proposal to send away the Kanakas and retain the other coloured races meets his strongest contempt, and he asks a question which he alikes supplies an answer—“ But is it really in the interests of a “ White Australia ” that the Kanakas are to be jettisoned ?” He replies, “ Not in. the least! The Pacific Islanders

number only 9*827 but of 23,635 persons belonging to alien and coloured races in Queensland/ Them are 9,318 Chinese in that State, and 2,269 Japanese. No one proposes to turn them out, in spite of their complexion. Why are the Kanakas Sheeted lor exile? Is it from a pious anxiety to secure the absolute and stainless whiteness of Australia ? It is a mere pittance of cant to pretend this 1 The crime of the Kanaka is not the tint of his skin, but' the lowness of his wages. The plea of a White Australia is merely used as a pretext to cover the destruction of a cheap variety of labour.” The paper deserves the perusal of all interested in the labour problem as it undoubtedly shows in very striking contrast the uses of words to secure an end very differently from the usually accepted use of such words. The absurdity of the attempt to form the Commonwealth into a White Australia is shown by the brief statement of the inhabitants of the Empire which number to-day some four hundred millions, of whom three hundred and fifty millions are Coloured people. The absurdity of the one-eighth of the population endeavouring to banish the seveneighths on account of tint, would mean the white people of the Empire performing their own happy dispatch.