Are You Satisfied?

Maoriland Worker, Volume I, Issue 8, 20 April 1911, Page 14

Are You Satisfied?

♦ Forfcy Years of " Progress.', In forty years the chief gain of the Worker has accrued througli the fall in prices, especially the fail in the price of food, which occurred between the seventies and the nineies. Money rates have been so remarkably stationary that, representing the wages of li/OO by 100, those ox 1874 are represented by 'c) 2. those of IS7I by 92, those of 1893 by 93, and those of 1905 by 97. There are some other considerations to be borne in mind. The first of these is that the hours of labour- have been shortened. The second is that the pace and strenuousness of labour have on the whale increased. I wonder if there is any man who, considering the facts I have detailed, could profess to be satisfied with the progress they exhibit. Is "this all that science and invention has done to improve the lot of the masses of the British ? Mechanical power lias been multiplied again and again, the resources of the world have been opened, out in a manner that was undreamed of in 1874. Science has revolutionised industrial operations in these forty years. The earth has been covered with a network of railways and telegrax>n lines and steamship routes. Processes of manufacture have been facilitated by machines, which are capable of producing far more than men could consume if they had the means to buy the produce. We see where benefit has accrued through the engineer and the man of science. The the steamships, the telegraphs, the marvelloris machines, the thousand and one resources of civilisation, are worked by the supine multitude in order to give an enormous income to the few. Eight years after George Stephenson's "liocket," the workman rarely or never travels in a long-distance train. Sixty weeks after the death of the world's Workers know nothing of ocean steamships save when they are compelled to .emigrate. The output of the world's factories is as to a small part good, that part being for the few well-to-do, and as to the gi-eater part rubbish, that rubbish being all that the many can afford to pay. I know of no sadder reflection in connection with industry than that the majority of those who work run splendid machinery to produce articles of poor quality. I believe that if knowledge of these facts could be brought home to the minds of "the British people, the British people would insist uixm a readjustment as between profits and wages. But the newspapers will not inform them, and indeed, in only a few newspapers has a man like myself the chance to endeavour to inform, them. The papers are busy with other subjects. —li. G. Chiozza Money.