Rangitikei Advocate. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8911, 3 September 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

ALL over the colony the Lords of Laziness are omitting shrieks of protest against the Arbitration Act' Amendment Bill introduced by the Minister for Labour, In Wellington one, who boasts that he has bean

i an agitator all his life, declares that * such a proposal as that of giving power to employers to deduct industrial flues from the wages of employees would cause the organised I labour of the Old World to kick out l of power auy Government that . would make such a monstrous proposal. He also alleged that he ' would sooner leave the colony than. | assent to living along such lines, i Evidently the amendment is likely ito have some beneficial effect, j Another in Christchurch gives ex- ! pression to a suspicion that the j amendment .has 'something to do 5 with the farm labourers’ movement. An examination of the Bill shows why the labour jap expressing disapproval. In ™ fl rst place, it kills ‘ ‘preference to unionists,” and it may force agitators to I w ork, because if they are not engaged in an industry .they canuot bo officers of an industrial union. Work is the last thing the labour a ,r itat<.r wants; bo abhors it with Ids whole soul, and prefers to ho maintained out of the weekly contributions of the workers. Thou, again, the amendment not only provides for awards being enforced, but makes members of unions liable for flues, and compels employers to deduct 25 per cent of wages due till fines are paid. And—crowning calamity—it insists that if any union is affiliated to any society outside New Zealand it must retain threefourths of its assets in this colony. This strikes a blow at the federation of labour, and also shows unmistakeable intention of empowering distraint on the assets of unions if necessity avisos. While wo do not believe that arbitration laws will ever bo of any real service in regulating matters which must eventually bo controlled by the inexorable law of supply aud demand, we must confess that Mr Millar’s proposals will have the effect of considerably modifying some of the evils created by existing law. Wo .trust he will have the grit to adhere to the principles he has proposed, but wc fear that ho will be forced to modify thorn so that they will become of little practical utility in checking the unreasonable aggressiveness of the labour unions aud their misguided aud well-paid loaders, or chief agitators. Mr Millax* is evidently beginning to see tilings in a very different light to that in -which ho l viewed thorn when ho was himself a labour leader. He has been com--1 polled by his position to realise that j the other sido has rights, that .if a ll the demands of labour were granted the result must bo disaster, ju the effects of which all would sluu-o. It is possible that he may yet discover that iu the years that are past lie was helping to create a Frankenstein which will accomplish his political destruction. Even if rhib amending Bill is withdrawn, or modified, it has gone far to help the labour agitators to couyip.cc their fellows that the Ministry have no real sympathy with labour, anu. as the Ministry have also clearly proved that they are antagonistic to the producers, the next election ma.> give some strange surprises. It is oven possible that the country may obtain an independent, honest, able and economical Parliament, which will legislate for the good of all, instead of in the purposed interests of small sections.

IN reflecting on the social unrest of the present day one is inclined to a belief that Muljdius and his followers wore right, and to question whether humanity, as a whole, benefits from interference with natural law. In former times frequent wars, raging' pestilences, or widespread famines tended to preserve the equilibrium,, but with the perfection of weapons and the development of defensive armaments wars have become less frequent and less destructive of life, while sanitary science, hospitals, etc., have aided the weak and unfit to preserve their existence and increase the number of weaklings, who cannot escape the operation of the law of heredity. The expansion of commerce and the bringing of fresh tracts of the earth’s, surface into

nultivatiou have also decreased the risk of decimation by famine. From the humane point of view, all these things mark advance. Rut already many philosophical writers and students of sociology are discussing the question of the multiplication of the unfit which has rapidly increased with the partial removal 05! former checks. They are beginning to question whether the destiny of humanity will be worked out on satisfactory lines if compromises are effected and checks are applied to prevent the operation of natural laws which tend to promotel the survival of the fittest, Formerly thrif tlessnoss,. laziness and debauchery led to poverty; poverty led to tho slum; and the slum led to disease- and death. But the popular tendency is to not only eradicate tho slum, but to discourage thrift, make the path easy for tho lazy and inefficient, aud pamper even; tho criminals:—for there are kind-, hearted people who believe that although the principle involved in, imprisoning men for criminal actSj is that they shall bo punished aud shall suffer, they should be provided witJi every comfort aud convenience, aud they frequently are better supplied with these than are tho honest toilers. The humane man will find it impossible to endorse tho opinions of the philosophers, which will aeem too cold-blooded, but they; serve to show that tho problem of evolving tho perfect social state is becoming more complex as each generation springs into existence.

IP it were uot that the interests of a community are seriously injured by fiscal follies the absurd ideas held by protectionists would be amusing. For instance, some of the Australian papers are rejoicing because the Commonwealth has; erected, a high tariff wall to keep out cheap supplies. They do uot reflect that this penalises all the people in order that a very small number may be employed iu doing useless work. What they are really shutting out are cheaper services—so much cheaper thau can be supplied locally that they can only be prevented by the erection of a high tariff barrier, which does net injure 'the outsider, because ho can take his supplies elsewhere, or otherwise employ-himself, but dfces injure Australia’s own people, because it compels them to pay twice as much for what they require, while their own products have no groater’valuo in the foreign markets to which they must be sent if they are to be exchanged for cash to come into the country.