Milk and Meat.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 14, 9 June 1911, Page 3

Milk and Meat.

A sincere man: One who bluffs only X part of the time. —Fra Elbertus. * _■ *

So the Kaiser approves of the Boy Scouts. Where is tho potentate who doesn'i? The -Ruling Class knows what's what. * * *

Seventy hours per week of seven days! That is tho lot of the dairyemployees of Taranaki. These conditions," plus boy labor, only give the farmer a margin of profit. In whose grip is he? His industry is a sweated one, and as sweating, like taxation, is passed on, tho farmer wantts to pass on to wholesale boy labor. Hence "Sedgwick boys." * * * THE DANGERS OF REFORM. The danger that I see ahead is that tho Socialist party at this stage, and under existing conditions, is apt to attract elements which it cannot assimilate, and that it may be either weighted down., or torn asunder with internal strife, or that it may become permeated and corrupted with the spirit of bourgeois reform to an extent that will practically destroy its virility and efficiency as a revolutionary organisation.—Eugene V. Debs. *- * *

Tho superstition that poverty is blessed is doubtless derived. from the parent superstition that the capitalist proportv that causes it is sacred. "* * *

Tho following advertisement appeared in a newspaper:—"Wanted, capable junior clerk; salary, 8s a week." A young man applied for the situation in these terms:—"l beg to offer you my services. Should you requiro a premium I could furnish a hundred pounds. You do not mention Sundays —should I have to work on that day ? Neither do you state whether the holder of the appointment must be clothed or not, but I havo concluded that he must at least wear something with a pocket or he would be unable to carry borne his wages!" - IS. *

Oct the striking habit. Won or lost, tho strike advances tho working class. It braces and stiffens them. As means to end, the strike—if not solution—is tremendously ahead of enervating arbitration.

Help along otir one-hundred-thou-sand number. It will be a startler, a brain-shaker, a drybones earthquaker. It will hurry on the workers to better times.

* ■«■ * IN FOR IT EITHER WAY.

Minister: Now, Tommy, suppose you did something naughty, and were asked if you did it. What would you say ? Tommy—l dunno. Minister: You don't know? Why— why, what would happen if you told » lie?

Tommy: The devil'd git mc. Minister: That's right. And what if you told tho truth ?

Tommy: I'd git the devil.—Toledo Blado.

Tho Socialist is a poor hand to believe in a futuro hell so long as the present existing conditions consist of «,n ever-present hell. Why leave one hell for another ?—The Florida Beacon.

HOT COALS. (By "Khandulite.")

Contempt is tho ghost of dead veneration.

There is but one luxury denied the millionaire—honesty. A rigmarole is an epigram with dyspepsia. "Tremendous difficulties" are the jim-jams of cowards.

"Go a bit slower!" said the shark to the swimmer.

A precedent is radical only at its birth, and conservative for ever after. A soul is a cheap pet. Its food, cant and humbug, may be had in any quantity gratis. Obsequious respect is tho cloak ot hatred. Logic is tho magnetic compass of the Socialist navigator. Hard times would cease to-morrow if the working class hadnV soft heads. The sweator poses a philanthropist—the alligator pretends to "be a Crime may be not only excused but extolled in a wealthy crimiial. Tho robber of the rich is a felon— the robber of tho poor a "benefactor. The burdens on society aro of its own loading. Wage slaves must kill themselves in order that pleasure slaves may kill time. Big thieves love front pews. Iho greater the rogue, tho nearer tho pulA sincere sermon would bo as refreshing as a cool change in Hell, and as impossible. A Right, demanded, is always reasonable. Tho same Right, begged for as a favour, is correctly described as "preposterous." On tho industrial field tho crying need is Closer Organisation. You see, toiler, don't you, how if you and your mates, reaching to the farthest boundary of industry, were united in a common plan, swayed by a common purpose, bent on a common mission, nothing could withstand you. "Each aiding each'^ —and down with tho things which whip you. * * •_■ From an advertisement: — "While the seal is on the bottle, the collar round the neck, tho cork (with 's brand) inside and the capsule over that, you are absolutely safe." Are we to understand that it is when the bottle is opened that tho danger begins ?-—' 'Punch.'' . * * -XOne Big Union!—that's the idea. You can defy Arbitration Courts, judges, agreements, and restrictions when you get this. Hustle for it. * * * Tho right to strike is tho strongest armoury of the workers. Nothing gained by surrendering it, bo it never so enticing, can better it. If instead of their visionary rush for arbitration,

the workers of Maoriland had kept on relying on themselves their spirit and strength to-day would have been remarkable. Arbitration was a device to bend workers' knees and train them to "flop."

Manda Lloyd : How's this for ono of the homes of the workers under Capitalism ? Last week Comrade Dora Montefioro and I visited an old Socialist comrade who keeps a small stationer's shop in Castlereagh street, Sydney, not more than a couple of stones' throw from Foy's ornate emporium. We wore shown through the little dusty shop into a living room, dingy and sordid and overcrowded with a table, sofa, stove, sink, pots and pans, chairs, cupboard and the inevitable piano. An old man, an old woman, and threo children competed for the atmosphere left over after deducting that crowded out by tho furniture. This box, about nine or ten feet square, opened directly upon what our old guide called a yard. It was about eight feet square, mostly covered in. Upon one side loomed a theatre, and on the other a .big business house. Into this sunless hole were crowded a washhouse, firet-lace falling to pieces, cubs, a woodheap, a rubbish heap, some old boxes, and a lavatory. The latter stood just opposite and not three feet away from tho only window in the living room! It was tho view from tho dining-table! Up a ladder were the bedrooms, rather better, perhaps, but sunless, damp, and sordid. We asked the rent. Two guineas a week! Two guineas a week for this appalling hovel remnant of a slum, that had been restained when all around had been renewed. Two guineas a week paid to a Capitalist landlord to whom appeals for repairs were vain. And our old woman has paid this two guineas a weok for 19 years!

A mercantile publication reprints from an American trade journal some remarkable experiments which successfully reduced the cost of production. It has been found that by a simple rearrangement of tools and appliances, and by careful instruction of the men in order to dispense with every unnecessary movement of their bodies, said movements are reduced by four-fifths, with the result that 300 bricks are laid where formerly 120 was the maximum. By similar readjustment of movements

and conditions tinder which shovellers do their work in the Midvale Steel Works, Philadelphia, the number of tons shovelled per man per day increased from 16 to 59. The average cost of handling decreased from £2 los 3d to £1 4s 7_d. This decrease would have been greater had not the Sihovellers received an increase of l_d each per day—ninepenco per week I As the furnaces could not possibly take all the material that oould be shovelled under the new system by the old staff, the managemen_ had to regretfully dispense with 460 labourers, and now 140 shovels are shifting what formerly engaged the attention of 600. The paper from which we extract the above facts referred to the new method as a "labour-saving device." Wagesaving was what was meant —the wages of the 460 men dismissed.

Over sixty-eight years have passed since Tom Hood's poem, "The Song of the Shirt," appeared in the Christmas number of "Punch." Much water has flowed under tho bridges since then. Tho author has long since "fallen on sleep"—his last; his famous poem is now rarely quoted, and only the sweating of the soamst-ress remains with us. LiKe General Booth's "Darkest England" of a more recent date. Hood's poem smote — momentarily smote —the conscience of the brutish, beg pardon, the British Philistine. Aa for '"Capitalism," it is in a worse position than the old roue, who declared that his conscience was as good as new, because he had never used it. "Capitalism" has no conscience. Owning the machinery is not enough; we must own also what we produce. As long as production for profit remains, so long shall we have sweated labour. Underselling by competing manufacturers, and tho necessity of the worker to find a master or starve, guarantee its existence. We are reminded of this fact by a London mechanist who has just come out to New Zealand, and who states that women and girls who find their own machines, cotton, and incidental expenses, for the making of ladies' fashionable jackets, many of which are exported and sold at high prices, are paid the magnificent sum of two shillings per dozen. And tho sewing machine is a labour-saving invention. •* * -*

It is stated that owing to the inevitable rush of Coronation orders, the Home Office issued a special order under the Factory and Workshops Act extending the period during which women and children may be employed in the making of wearing apparel. From May 1 to June 30 employment will be allowed between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m., subject to certain specified conditions. . Thus women and children of the working classes are to be overworked, driven and sweated in order that their "betters" may not be disappointed over their finery for tho Coronation tomfoolery. With all the distress existing through unemployment among working women, there is absolutely no occasion for this "special order." If the fine ladies whose dresses for the Coronation are a matter o£ such moment will give their orders in time, and those accepting the orders engage the extra "hands" required, the normal working hours will be found quite sufficient.—"Justice."

"What is the cause of so much poverty and suffering, in the wealthiest and most prosperous nation in the world? It is not want of wealth nor want of food. There is enough of both, and more than enough for all. But while some are wasting the gifts of God's bounty and the fruits of man's industry, and actually rioting in luxurious abundance, others —the producers of that abundance —are pining in want, amidst the tears of hungry families, and suffering most painfully, in the midst of plenty, all the privations of an actual famine."— "Brewster's Sermons."