MOM POLITICS FOR THE PEOPLE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1145, 13 September 1913, Page 3

MOM POLITICS FOR THE PEOPLE.

EVOLUTION V.'REVOLUTION. An Appeal to Wageworkers and Employers, to Capitalists and Professional Men, to Exploiters and Exploited. [By George Fowlds.] VI.

lu his memorandum of 1904 to the Right Hon. R. J. Seddon, Mr Edward Tregear, as we have already t seen, showed clearly that the failure of the Conciliation and Arbitration Acts to raise the real wages—i.e., the purchasing power —of the workers is due to “ the fact . . . that there is a third

hand in the game beside the employer and employee that this “ third man, the non-producing ground-landlord of the city and suburban property . . . alone

will rise a winner in the end and the employer and employee alike are exploited by “ this third man;” that, in fact,

THE CHIEF DEVOURKR of the wages of the worker and of the profits of the employer is excessive rent.” And next to excessive rent come unjust rates and taxes. The working farmer and those he employs find to their cost that they also have to contend with a “ third hand in the game ” who “ alone will rise a winner in the end,” and that this third man is the monopolist and speculator in country lands, who forces settlers into the backblocks, where, struggle as they may, they can make only the barest of livings; the monopolist and speculator who forces up the price of all other country lands to such a figure that the working farmer, settle where be may, can, on the average, after paying an excessive rent in the guise of “interest” to a mortgagee, make only the barest living for himself and pay only the barest living wage to his employees. As a case in point I may cite Taranaki, where the working farmer, his wife and family are in only too many cases mortgaged up to the hilt, and. though slaving their hardest, in these days of the milking machine, the cream separator, the relrigerator, with butter at is per pound, only make the same bare living that their predecessors made 20 years ago with butter only at 6d per ' pound ! And the reason for this is obvious to the man who realises that the price of dairying land 20 years ago was j£io to ,£ls per acre, whereas to-day it is £SO, £6O or £75 per acre, and near the bigger centres of population rises sometimes to £IOO per acre. The rise in the price of land

HAS DISCOUNTED ADD THE ADVANTAGES arising from the use of improved machinery and methods, all the advantages of the “ money ” provided by the late Liberal Government, all the advantages offered in the shape of better roads and bridges, and a better railway service; and until land monopoly and land speculation be abolished, all attempts, no matter on what lines, to improve the position of the working farmer and the farm labourer must inevitably be discounted by the same “adverse influences.” as Mr Tregear would call them. The farmer cannot graze sheep or cattle or grow maize, wheat, turnips, or any other crops on the moon, nor run a dairy farm on “ the milky way.” He can only farm the land, and so long as the land is monopolised, the land monopolist and land speculator can and will “ farm the farmer,” and every other land user, for the matter of that, of all he produces above and beyond a bare living. It must be so, for, as Judge James G. Maguire, of San Francisco, put it in effect in an able address on this subject some months ago “We are all like bees in a hive. If the bees in a hive worked twice as hard as before, and produced twice as much money as before, how much more honey would the bees have left for themselves at the end of the year ? The answer is easy ; they would have no more honey left for themselves, lor the owner of the hive would, as before, take from them all the honey they produced except just enough to enable them to go on living and working and Storing up honey for him.”

THE WORKING BEE V. THE DRONES.

This planet is our human hive of industry, and no matter how hard we work* no matter how enormously we improve our methods and machinery and increase the amount of our wealth or “ honey” we produce, the working bees in the human hive will gel no more “ honey ” for themselves. The drones who monopolise the “ hive” will as usual take from, them all that they produce, except just enough to enable them to go on living and working for the drones. In short, the private appropriation of rent, only possible so long as private monopoly of land continues, is the master force that prevents a just distribution ol the products' of labour. This is the greatest of tbe 11 adverse influences,” “ the chief devourer c f the wages of the worker and of the profits of the employer,” There are other “ adverse influences,” other “ devourers ” of the wealth produced by labour and (.labour’s product) capital, (from the land. But land monopoly —private appropriation of rent —is

"The robber who takes all that is

left” above and beyond a bare existence and, as Henry George points out in his “Protection or Free Trade?” it is no good driving off any or all of the other robbers so long as there remains this robber who make*! a clean sweep of all the

worker’s earnings except the minimum needed to enable the worker to go on living and working for him. The greatest of all adverse influences “ must be sought out and neutralised fearlessly and effectively in the interest of all classes of workers (whether with hand or brain or capital) i.e.,’of the vast majority of the citizens of the colony.”

The first step to be taken is, manifestly, that of driving off the “ robber who takes all that is left.”" That is not the only step to be taken. Far from it. There are other robbers, some of them very big robbers, to be dealt with. But to drive off|“the robber who takes all that is left” must be the first step. To drive off any of the osher robbers first would simply mean so much the more to be taken by “the robber who takes all that is left.” But if we deal with him first, then every robber that we get rid of after that, will mean so much the more lor the workers, not so much the more for the land monopolist. And to drive off this robber who takes all that is left is “in the interests . . . of the vast

majority of the citizens of the colony”—in the interests of all “the useful people” of New Zealand.

A GENERAL STRIKE —AT THE BALLOT BOX.

There is no need for revolutionary action. Every one of the citizens of New Zealand possesses the Iranchise. We have one man one vote, one woman one vote. And, that being so, a general industrial strike is not required. All that is needed is that we shall agitate, agitate, agitate—educate, educate, educate, until the great majority of the citizens realise that it is to their interests to drive off this “robber who takes all that is left,” and then organise the citizens into a “useful people’s party” —for which the United Labour Party already provides the nucleus —for a general strike at the ballot-box against all monopolies. Even without proportional representation, a union of all the progressive forces of the Dominion for a strike at the ballot-box against monopoly and privilege, must win. ABOLITION OF EXPLOITATION IMPERATIVE.

The labour question has gone beyond the stage of wages and conditions. It is no longer a mere matter of so much per hour and so. many hours per day. Nothing short of securing to each worker the full pioduct of his labour will now suffice. Nothing short of the abolition of every vestige of exploitation can solve the problem and avert revolution by force. In order to abolish every vestige of exploitation, we must, whenever we can, abolish the monopolies that make such exploitation possible, and wherever the abolition of these monopolies is not possible they must be owned and controlled by the public lor the benefit of all, not held by a privileged few for the advantage of the few. This is clearly recognised in the “declaration of principles and statement on the present crisis,” issued by the Dominion executive of the United Labour Party. After stating “(r) that our purpose and policy is evolutionary and constructive in character, and aims by constant revision and improvement of existing conditions of society to advance the well-being of the people as. a whole and not merely the sectional interests of a class ; and (2) that we repudiate as a party and as individuals the policy and methods of, revolutionary action put for ward under the various names of Syndicalism, Industrial Unionism, and Direct Action, under which the workers would be committed to planned industrial strife, stimulated class warfare, and the use of force instead of the process of the law,” this manifesto declares — “(3) That we oppose most strongly the exploitation of the people by monopolies of all kinds, and seek to organise all who are opposed to such exploitation into one party. “(4) That in the held of industry our policy is to endeavour by means of conferences, conciliation, and arbitration, or other methods of legal regulation, to effect the peaceful settlement of industrial disputes, reserving the strike only as a last resort.

‘‘(s) That in the field of politics we stand as a distinct party. We uphold the rights of the people to the fullest measure of self-govern-ment by the free selection of their representatives, both national and local. Our object is to establish by law and just administration such conditions as will secure equality of opportunity to all, and ensure that wealth created by society shall be owned by society and used for the benefit ol all, while that produced by the individual shall be owned by the individual.”

Surely no honest, level-headed

(xAVE ALL A FAIR TRIAL

“For years I suffered from bronchitis although I tried many patent medicines and doctors prescriptions, giving all a fair trial,’’ writes Mrs Annie Lennon, Bridge Road, Drummoyne, N.S.W. “Then I tried Chamberlain’s Cough Remedy and from the first dose got jeljef and kept on getting better. Sometimes in the winter I get a return ot my old complaint but in a very mild way tor Chamberlain’s Cough Remedy soon puts me right.” For sale everywhere —Advt.

mao, comparing the above declaration of principles and statement of policy with the egregious “preamble and statement of principles” put forward by the United Federation of Labour and the Social Democratic Party, can hesitate to throw in his lot with the United Labour Party and subscribe to its policy as best calculated to protect the rights of the workers and promote the welfare of the people of New Zealand as a whole.