The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1918. DRIFTING TO DISASTER.

Taihape Daily Times, 24 October 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1918. DRIFTING TO DISASTER.

(With which is Incorporated The Xfti* hape Dost and WalntKiluo News)..

Not the least considerable curse resulting from the war is the disorganising influence it is having on the social and industrial life in the various countries involved in the strife. Indeed, it is difficult to predict what the relations between capital and labour will ultimately conn? to in the not far distant future. It is tolerably safe to say, however, that commercial and industrial methods and schemes as practiced to-day will become obsolete; it would be matter for wonder if they did not. Industrial dissatisfaction is everywhere one turns in viewing the industries in any part of the British Empire, and not the least so in this Dominion. Forces are operating one against the other striving for either huge extortions, or for just enough to keep body and soul together. To secure permanent improvement in higher wages is proved to be impracticable; higher wages and new arbitration awards are mere temporary measures to stbm off the time for dealing with the subject once for all. An industrial agreement is made to-day, only to be cast to the winds to-mor-row, as fugitive as clouds in a tumultuous sky. Yet the means of life will have to be made accessible to every man, woman and child of which the body politic is composed. The emancipation of labour from serfdom to its present status has been the result of several centuries' of industrial strife; in changing the attire of labour from sackcloth to good woollen tweed many patriots have given their lives. One need only read the industrial history of England to note how gradual the emancipation of labour has been, but it is just as readily discernable that the day of complete freedom from the degrading operations of old systems is very near at hand, and' it is this great world war that is now raging that is being responsible for the coming crisis. Thinking men, notably students of economy; are perplexed to understand present happenings and phenomena as a means for evolving a thesis of what social and. industrial conditions are eventually to be, owing to the almost entire absence of any really constructive proposals in the speeches and writings of those who have assumed 'leadership. It is stated that this or that is to be become supreme, but disagreement between leaders is ; almost as acute as between capital and labour. The mass of workers are told that there is an elysium somewhere that they are seeking to attain; the more credulous throw up their hats and shout hurrah, but the thinkers want to know something more about it, and particularly how it is going to be reached. Men may be told they are going a trip to Timbuctoo, and many are satisfied with the bare statement, but the majority want to know how they are going to get there. There are self-seekers, barnaqjes that have fastened themselves on labour, who urge that it is only necessary to put them in Parliament and all social and industrial conditions will undergo a magical transformation, putting labour in supreme control and making erstwhile capitalists their ‘slaves and street-sweepers. That is the preaching of Bolsheviks, and, had the war net intervened, the internacine labour struggles would undoubtedly have been spread over many years yet to come, owing to stupid doctrines keeping extant the cleavage that has always hitherto been the outcome of the attitude of extremists. At in the history of this country has the need of a leader been so keenly felt, and that is saying a great deal. As a community the Dominion is drifting in darkness, struggling with trivialities, and there is no one to show the way out. While those in uppermost positions are consumed with greed, pursuing their wallow in profiteering, they are at the same time opening a way and giving opportunity for the human under-current to assert itself. What will it profit the present party of greed if, when light is shed on the industrial situation .they find they have for ever lost the reins of power which guide the country’s industrial and social policy? The backing for their profiteering in the laws they have placed on the statute book will have been repealed) and they will find themselves very much at the mercy of those they have exploited. We must seriously ask ourselves whether our present industrial and commercial methods have stood the test that modern needs have placed upon

them, and if they have not, are changes to be of a promiscuous nature, the outcome of drift? There is likely to be a general election at no distant date, and if industrial disaster la to be avoided it behoves every elector in every electorate to do his duty and to exercise his vote and influence in a ■way and to a degree that he has not hitherto done. There may be many men offering their services to the country who are nothing more than mere delegates from one section or another, knowing nothing more than what their particular cliques want to obtain, no matter by what means. The industrial and social horizon should constitute a warning to every elector to be on guard against becoming a victim to shibboleths and personal friendships. Every newspaper that is printed contributes its quota of evidence to the seething disturbances, in under-current and otherwise, in every avenue of our commercial, social, industrial and political affairs. The .increasing of wages only quietens it for a very short time and it breaks out again with increased force. Government and people should have learned long ago that wage-raising is an absolute failure; it is a mere knock on the head with a money-bag from which the workman soon recovers to take revenge. The alternate jump upwards of wages and cost of living should surely have convinced every sane person that it is an effort to achieve the impossible. During the session of Parliament commencing today the House will resound with streams of talk about questions that cannot commence to compare in importance with that so clearly foreshadowed by the increase of industrial and social strife, and it seems apparent that the next general election will be nothing more than a party fight instead of being a display of determination to institute some constructive policy that will render anything in the nature of revolution impossible.