THE ARBITRATION PALLIATIVE.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 39, 1 December 1911, Page 6

THE ARBITRATION PALLIATIVE.

Dear "Worker/ , —Let mc recommend J. Smith, who writes in favour of above, to read again "Marxian's" illuminating contribution in same issue ,as his own letter appeared. The burden of his remarks is that wages under capitalism must be low, aiiid/that the remedy for low wages and their common corrolary, high prices, is the abolition of the wage system. J. Smith would deal with farm laborers' troubles (low wages and high prices) separately, per medium of the Arbitration Court, etc., as if/ siich were peculiar to farm laborers, were local in their effect, and cotild be dealt with as- local troubles. I affirm he thus confounds cause and effect, and temporary disarrangements of the functions of society with incurable disorders. Can Mr. Smith not see that the farm laborers' troubles are but local manifestations of a universal disease, a disease not peculiar to the country, but as common in the towns, and that not only in New Zealand, -but throughout the world. What Mr. Smith s up against is private ownership of the means of life —in a word, the capitalist system. Your correspondent seems to forget '.liit society is an organism afflicted with a cancerous affection, the only euro for which is complete eradication. It may be. painful and risky to cut' out a cancer, but it is the only cure. Even so, capitalism can be cured only by destruction of the wage system. You might as well try to wash a blackamoor white as to cope with (so-called) local evils of capitalism per medium of the Arbitration Court. If you want a white -man you have got to change the breed. So if. you want to be free from exploiition and secure to the workers the wealth they create you must change he system. To have a true civilisation you have to destroy,, tear down, root p the counterfeit civilisation now existing. This is a good system—for, the capitalist; at least, in his ignorance he thinks so. What is play to "Sassiety" means long hours and low wages to the workers, or, where the hours have been restricted, either by law or by trade union action. it means intensification of labor, speeding up, etc. Friend Smith :<oos 'not seem to recognise that the workers don't count under capitalism, that present-day society was not instituted for their benefit. He seems on a \ovel with the "Gentlemen of England" of whom the Scots poet M'acKcnzie sings: "Who preach pretty fairy tales )f Charity and Comradeship and Love that never fails, ■\nd how these generous sentiments, with pleasant social pap, Shall revolutionise the world and change the moral map. And', Friend Smith, again the words.of die same .poet, 1 ''I dnro stand up and toll you that you , hold a worthless briefs

When "Famine strips the bone," damn all has other name than beef." Pity for the toilers will never induce the soulless agents of capitalism to commit economic suicide. A rise in wages, very necessary and welcome to the individual recipient under the system almost invariably means a rise in prices, and but aggravates the economic disorder. It is *the wage system, the keystone of capitalism, which is the evil. Awards of the Arbitration Court but drug the patients, dull the pain, as morphia- physical pain, but do not exorcise the poison of capitalism from the blood. Again I advise your correspondent (and others like-minded) to read "Marxian's" letter again.—Yours for revolt, Well. T. A. EAGLE.