Plain Words to Working Men.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7079, 27 February 1893, Page 2

Plain Words to Working Men.

Bt One op Them. The cause of - labour is the issue of the hour. When it ought to bare, but has not got ; what it might be, but is not; and what it may be, if it goes the right way to get there, are questions that fill the newspapers, occupy platforms and pulpits, and cause not a little headache in monopolistic and society night* caps. We are in fact being turned inside out like a meal bag,and scientifically gauged like a barrel of high wines. Without doubt, we shall bo a disappointment to some in what we are, and a surprise to most in what we are not, being, after all, muoh the same as the rest of folks, the difference resting mostly in our boots and pockets. We have made some considerable to-do about what we ongbfc to have. Do we ever stop to think how much we throw away ? We think of our thin slice of beef, our pat of sausage-meat, and our red*herring—never too much and sometimes not enough ; but how often is it that we scratch our heads over the dimes and dollars wo drop in our mugs of beer ? We object to a out in our wages, and have bard words for such employers as, from greed or necessity, reduce a worker’s weekly pay ; but do we not do tbe same thing when we beat a shoemaker oat of a quarter for soling our shoes, and underpay tbe teamster that hauls our coal and wood f

Are there not more time and thought given as to what horse will win a race than as to what kind of man we want at Washington ? We find fault with corporations for depressing labour-values when the market is full of idle hands ; but do we not crack the same kind of whip when we compel a contractor in the middle of an important contract to give us higher wages, or find himself left out in the cold ?

We have grown into societies and combinations, and are no longer thumbs, but a handful of fingers. Organisation has run ns into lumps, and when we move, things have to give way or crack up. These combinations are right enough, and good enough, and some of them big enough. We can do with them what we eou.d never do without them. The misfortune is that if we make a break it is a s big one, and in making a mistake we are not sitting down on one egg, but on a basketful. It is common sense to suppose that where two men dispute, say on the length of a pine board, or the diameter of a wheel, they call in some man with a tape-line to find out the dimensions, and to decide the dispute ; this is a good old-fashioned and square-footed way of settling the whole matter. This plain and practical sense is just as handy and useful in a dispute with onr employers. But is it not a fact with too many of us that we are sticklers for one side of the argument, and will neither consider nor examine the other P It is just this one-eyed kind of business that makes us lopsided, and cross-grained, and as troublesome as a blind mule or a deaf dog. Strikes are common, and they make notoriety and money for some, but we know well enough that there is something painful and tragical behind the painted scenes. They are wet with children’s tears, and rattle with bare bones. What fnn is there in this business of getting into debt, running to the pawnshop, and accepting a weekly contribution from men who have little enough for themselves ? What sort of comfort is there in seeing our children losing the calves off their legs, and the flesh off their bones, wanting school books, and soles on their shoes, because their fathers are not heroes, but a pack of fools ? We may measure a boycott in the same bushel. It is a mighty means of bringing some bad men down to their marrow bones, and of choking some euoh burglars of human rights as need it ; but how often it is fc simply the policy of wrecking a train to run over a straw cow, or, as we think, to punish a man sitting in an easy chair a thousand miles away. We may shut the factory of a single sinner, and shrink his bank account, and reduce his railway stock ; but what of the five hundred bands that made their bread and butter in his employ ? Where are they, now that the gates are locked, and what are thev eating when the grocer and the batcher re*fuse them credit ? We have come to a point in labour progress where we see not only the fence-rails which shut us in to small pudding and poor pay, but have the means, and the public consent to take them down. Wo can got out of the woods into the road, and out of darkness into daylight, if we choose to do so. We wanted good laws, and we have come at last under the dome of Washington and up the stairways of Congress. But it is on this line, and in this new position, that the necessity of more knowledge, and the value of education are as plain as a pikestaff- We may have common sense and the average halfounce of good intentions. These are good in their place, and are absolutely indispensable in all the details of life; but they cannot clean a clock, run a train, or lead labour up the ladder of its chances. Good intentions may fail at setting a broken leg, and adutr.p of muscle may not make up for a spoonful of brain ; and the time has come for us to study as much as we smoke, and to think as much as we talk.

We' are grumbling, and very rightly too, about the way the money runs ; most of it, like the rain on the roof, into a few big tubs, and sparing only some chance pailfuls for the rest of us. By co-operation we can change this system of big water pipes, and do some good plumbing on our own account. There are some men in the world who would persuade us that the inequalities of wealth can be removed by anarchy and revolution—by upsetting the farmer’s waggon and having a general good time in eating his watermelons. They teach us the doctrine of a forcible division of all things, so that no man’s share of gold and silver, beef, mutton, cake, and pie shall be more than any other’s. It never was, never can, and never will be done. No man has the right to the eggs, so long as we own the hens, or to the crop, so long as we paid for the seed and did our own ploughing. Our chance lies in being equal to our duties and not abusing our privileges. In these things there is no room for demagogues or deadheads; the lazy and the shiftless, the drunken and the dishonest, must rub their elbow joints somewhere else. We want no such sand in our sugar ; and to my fellow toilers I would say : Let us be as deserving of our rights as we have been noisy over our wrongs.