The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, APRIL 14. THE CLOVEN HOOF.

Taihape Daily Times, 14 April 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, APRIL 14. THE CLOVEN HOOF.

( With which iB Incorporated Tha Tai* haps Post tad Walrearlno Nowa).

The British Hous© of Lords has accepted a motion by Lord Farringdon which demands that, the strictest economy be practised in view of the financial outlook. This is a simple and rather inoffensive-looking little message from the Hail of the Noble Lords, but it has a sting which will not be unobserved by British labour. It will be regarded by them as the commencement of a scpicczing process of the masses, while th© Lords go on enjoying all thjoir usual luxuries; it is a holding back of the working classes, while the process of millionsmaking is pushed to all its satonic extremes. In other words, it is a feeler by bloated Lord Burtons, and of other robbers of the people in the millions gathering, as to how the masses in Britain will stand the effort to re-establish old social and industrial conditions, and it is only interesting to ns in New Zealand because some such throwing down of the gauntlet by commercial and shipping robbers to th© people of this little country may result. There are few people in this Dominion, however. Svho ha vet any doubt about a temper in our people that overwhelmingly stands for very much reformed social and industrial conditions. The cornering of foodstuffs will not be tolerated in the near future, and the people must bo on the alert against any political red herring being drawn across th© national scent when the general elections are announced. There is much political preparation going on, and the Government that has stood for the profiteer against th© masses is already doing a good deal in the way of an education for the constituencies. At the close of previous great wars there was experienced famine in varying degrees, but on this present occasion there is not only a shortage of food, but huge numbers are without a shelter, while many have to pack into positive dons of infamy. While the profiteering class have possession of the reins of government the people have to go housedess. No further proof of the indifference and callousness of th© beastly rich coalowners in Britain is needed other than that resulting from inquiry ias to the cause of coal strikes. While the mil-lion-grabbers are taking the life and energy of their workers, it has been disclosed that the workers are housed in hovels bearing no comparison in comfort to the kennel in which they keep their dogs. The British Government, for very shame’s sake, had to do something, and they took a levy of onepenny per ton on coal marketed to furnish humane treatment to the workers who sweated all day, or all night, in the very bowels of the earth. While coal-owners have been given seats in the House of Lords, by virtue of the wealth they hav© amassed, the men who made the money for them are housed worse than their dogs. Hundreds of feet down in the heated, airless pits, menaced by fire-damp and water, those workers come to the surface to a home worse than that which their employers ’ dogs have to go to. The noblo Lords have accepted a motion demnu’ding sV.r'iet'est econlomy towing to the national financial outlook. How

much poorer is Britain to-day than it was in 1914? Of course, the national account looks very bad indeed, but where has the bulk of the money withdrawn from the National (account gone to? It has been paid away to British shipping owners, to British munitionmakers, to British ironworks owners, to British cotton mills, cloth and tweed mills, to the maker® of khaki clothing, to cutlers who make swords, and arms manufacturers who contract for gunmaking. We need take no account of | the money that has permanently left Britain, because a very satisfactory quid pro quo is forthcoming. New territory and now markets will have been bought very cheaply from the monetary view-point, and the vulture crow'd in the Halls of the Lords (are now' bent upon grabbing all that accrues to Britain from the huge sacrifice of the flower of British manhood. The bulk of the money disbursed by Britain is si ill held by Britishers, but will those same Britishers patriotically foot the demand for an impoverished exchequer? No, they demand that strictest economy be forced upon the people by Act of Parliament. They mean that' laws shall be passed that will limit or .regulate the nature, the quality, and flow of the food British working people shall cat, and the clothing that the British masses shall wear, because, if these noble Lords make it illegal for workers to dress and live in accordance with th e severity of the climate in which they live and work, those same workers wall not require to bo paid so much wages. To lower the level of living is to lower the level of I wages, and also to lower the spending power of the masses. So it will be seen that shop-keepers are as much the prospective victims of the noble Lords as arc their workingmen customers. New Zealand’s Acting-Prime Minister has til ready suggested \a J ‘ # closer union between the parties forming the National Government, but it is safe to predict that, the day of the party who gave, away the national estate; ' who have allowed the land to bo aggregated into huge holdings, is nearly run. While progress is languishing for closer settlement and increased production. aggregation is proceeding to a shameful degree almost on the Borough boundaries of this town. Half-a-dozen or more bouses 'are empty, going to decay, while one man owns all the sections that six of eight splendid settlers hitherto worked. One man has replaced the six or eight farmers, and, it would be sheer lunacy to suggest that the one man could pretend to produce one quarter of what formerly came off the land he now holds. This country needs a Government that will put those ousted settlers back on their farms; wo want no Noble Lords to cut down the standard of living, but we do very urgently need an honest body of humane legislators who will settle the land and increase production a hundredfold so that the standard of livingcan rather bo improved than cut down. The noble British Lords are out to level down British labour to that of continental labour; they desire to work on the principle of the hardhearted monster who stated that what killed one horse would buy three more. What right, anyway, have those capitalistic Lords to any voice in the Government of the country? The House of Lords keeps ever green the memory of the masses that they wore once the serfs, the slaves body and soul, to be bought and sold with the land on which they were born and from which they were, of their own volition, inseparable. We want a better class of manhood in Britain. | therefore the standard of living must bo raised by increased production. During the reign* of Reform in this country there has been a continuous trail off the land to the cities, we want, a government .that will set the trail going back to the land.