THE LABOUR PROBLEM

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8345, 4 February 1913, Page 6

THE LABOUR PROBLEM

Ono of the Tory newspapers is vehemently demanding that the Government should find a remedy for what it calls the outrageously arbitrary attitude of organised Labour towards its employers in continually demanding higher wages and shorter hours under threats of a strike. If we do not misapprehend the sentiments of the Hon. W. F. Massey; however, the remedy has already been found. It is contained in the new scheme under which it is proposed to introduce 25,000 immigrants annually. The Prime Minister says they are coming, but, at the same time, they are not designed to cheapen labour. The Hon. F. M. B. Fisher is somewhat more candid. “ What wo want,” ho says, “ is five times the present number of people.” What does this mean? Five times the number of slaughtermen! There will be plenty of competition for work under such conditions, and it is safe to assume that the jobs will not go round. Five times the number of miners! With five men waiting anxiously to go in where one threatens to go. out, there is very little danger of strikes. Five times the present number of firemen 1 Who amongst us would venture to say there will be any more troubles on the Maori or the Mapourika when this happens? The defiant answer of the Labour Conference is that it will abolish the wages system and seize the earth. It is easy to talk, but the average working man is not content yet to give up his wages, and in the meantime the pangs of hunger control the situation, as has always been the case hitherto, and the invasion of imported labour is at hand. >lt is fairly certain that it will effectively settle the Labour difficulty, from the point of view of “Reform,” because the rates of wages cannot be maintained with a dozen men competing for one job. Labour sowed the wind at the general election, when it voted to put Mr Massey and his colleagues in power, and presently it will be reaping the whirlwind. And self-styled Reform. with its tongue in its cheek, is complacently viewing a situation that is rapidly working out to its own ultimate advantage.