LABOUR CONUNDRUMS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 38, 13 February 1913, Page 4

LABOUR CONUNDRUMS.

“Complete economic emancipation” is a phrase used in a circular issued by the United Congreo Committee which is trying to organise a large Socialist Party for industrial and political purposes. The Wellington “Post” wants to know the meaning of those

words? Our contemporary proceeds: The literal sense is a release .from workaday worry, a happy life under the bread-fruit tree, with no concern at ail about the bills of butchers and bakers. - Probably the meaning in the peculiar committee’s mind is freedom from “wage slavery.” The word “emancipation” itself means a taking out of bondage, but what is the bondage of Labour iu New Zealand? Who

are the “slaves,” if there are any “slaves” Is the strike of the slaughtermen, for instance, a revolt against “slavery”? The killers’ case is a remarkable example of economic freedom. They were offered a rate at which, it is said, a first-class operator can earn,up to £9 a week (with no largo amount of overtime), but they chose to fight for their own figure, which would bring in about another £1 a week. Who are the “slaves” in this case? Who were the “slaves’ in the Waihi' affair There the members of a Socialist union of miners struck as an indication to employers that non-Socialists should be forced to join the Socialist body. Who were the people to bo “emancipated” at Waihi?