The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1919. MANUAL LABOUR SUPERSEDED.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3349, 29 November 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1919. MANUAL LABOUR SUPERSEDED.

With which its incorporated “The Taihape Post; and Waimarino News.”

The present high cost of manual labour and of animal traction is bringing about an interesting little revolution in methods of performing many classes of work, and particularly those of constructing modern macademised roads. County Councils are being ‘awakened to the fact that very little response is made to their calls for road metalling contracts; rrhe erstwhile familiar teamsters with ‘their long‘ lines of horses and carts, transporting produce from farm to railway, land drawing road metal from quarry to where it isrequired to make highways passable have almost passed "out of f'a.shion; workmen have 15e"c’<5.in_e scarce, and so costly tthat 111a'cl1i11e1'yt'n1ust be forthcoming to take their place to a considerable extent. Tenders for road work received by the _ Rangitikei County Council .clearly"indicate tli-at the time'h‘as come for substituting manu'3.l" labour with meclianism in making -County roads, and the remuneration dem-anded by tenderers for work opens up a very ‘big question. Why has the increase in the cost of essential road-making so far exceeded the powers of the source from which money is drawn’? It is the same exercise of economic "madness which is the cause of all industrial and labour troubles, the price of one commodity is put up ahnormaally, and it at once affects those in closest relationship, and this goes on enlarging the rings in the water caused by dropping the first stone, until everything necessary to liufnan existence is involved, and if no specific is discovered for this economic madness, bcgat of greed, it can only end in self-destruction, by civil war, or revolution. It is not the econ omic aspect, however, we cssayed to connnen-t. ‘upon, but the simple fact that County Councils have discovered that itheye-must perforce, abandon old methods of making essential roads of communication that reticulate the country wherever there is ~Se‘oflellloHfMoney that can -be made available for road-making, even in old settled districts, is altogether insufficient to pay the amount that men are now compelled to demand for »themselves, their horses and carts, and roiadmaking is to becomo rather a matter of machinery than of manual labour and animal traction. In future mechanical treetors, graders, ~stone‘ ‘Crushers, and other maclhinery will have replaced _('men, horses and carts. It is difiicult for even County Councillors -to coordinate their views with road-making of the future. so rapid is thclch-ange being forced upon them. Engineers, and the more prac—tic'ally-minded, ‘are, however, fully grasping the altered situationfand are endeavouring to equip themselves and their Councils with the most complete plants that will continue to render road-making possible while the economic chaos gives way to saner -counsels, or develops into civil strife or I‘eVolll- - Just as surcuas the ecOIIOIJI'iC cancer had a commencement it Will have an ending, no work or vileness of man can go on for ever; he has set the laws of nature at defiance, and it is equally as certain that he will haVO 150 pay the penalty. No matter What the commodity that was the subject of primal cornering, -land which sh'3t'ool’od the limitations of econ"om'ic laws, it forced all other commodities, labbuf and otherwise, to operate towards parity. If it was an articleof hilnlfin food, such -as bread, then it rapidly aiifectps the price of every human requirement, through lllabour .'requirillg increased remuneration to compensate for the increased cost of his daily -bread, and so do the social structure the whole world is stricken economically as with an epidemic. Who can regard with ordinary‘ equanirnity the suicidal practices of men _ wife, are positively floundering, and -struggling" around like caged rats?._ We, have one set of men ad'»'.oc’ating the confiscation

of all wealth, concreted and otherwise, as a means of escape from the economic coils in which dishonest trusts and combines have entrapped them; they preach sedition and revolution; they would not only destroy society, -but they would‘-also revolutionise all government, ‘but the Work of ‘the fil'St economic robber does not need Such drastic treatment. At the other extreme we discover ‘another set of lead ers madly adding fuel to the economic fire, and it will be realised that Such men are just as surely reaching the same. end as the out and out t'lil'oCt actionists. They »are meeting farmers and telling them that increased cost of their requirements justly warrants an increase in the price. of their wheat; then they pass on to the miller and agree that the rise in wheat prices must be followed by a. rise in flour, they go on similarly to the flour merchant and then on to the baker, until the farmer, when he sees what the Whole process has produced in the price of the leaf of bread he is ~appalled, chagrined, an-d overwhelmed. It is labour that produces wealth, in co:njunction with the farmers’ capital, who is the greatest sufferer because it is his commodity that pays for all our economic blunders. Most thinking people not swayed by the opportunity to take questionable profits, latfirni that the leaders who go round encouraging increase of prices simply because others have dishonestly increased prices are pursuing as equally dangerous a course as the men. who would-ltry the “short\,cut’_’ leading _,-‘througih direct action, sedition, anfd prevolution. It should be very «apparent .that ‘tile apostle of the higher—price doctrine are leading Society and Government to destruction. When they have reached the utterly impossible price heights, the crash must‘ come. It is amazing to see how greed warps the judgment of some men; for political power they risk destroying the Whole political structure, while others have become so desperate that they would revolutionise it by direct action, but whether the process be by the direct action of those driven to desperation, or the indirect action of those obsessed with lust for political power, the result must be the game in the end. "The first profiteer his the source of all the trouble, and all profiteers are the cause of trouble at "the present time. I.t is to the leaders who Willcofnrnencc upon the source of economic disaster, to crush it out of"existence, every class of society, "should" pi.n ‘its’ political faith. Society is economically cancer-strickeni, and if medicamcnts of ‘the pathologist are of no avail.inothing"remains but the surgeon ’g knife, unlessiithe patient be left to be devoured to death by the unchecked disease. The ptolitieal shibboleths and party‘ s.lo.gans of quacks are mere irritants, |and"“render the condition of the patient. more unbearable than it need be. It is pitiable to have to think that men are approaching an economic catastrophe without -attempt. ing to think out either the nature of the disease or the means whereby it may be cured. ~ _