THE LABOUR MOVEMENT.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 453, 12 March 1890, Page 4

THE LABOUR MOVEMENT.

A singular but strikingly suggestive prooF of the rapid advance of labour towards the desired goal of equal rights, is exemplified by the recent new 3 from America which states that a conference has been held between the Association known as “The National Farmers’ Alliance and Industrial Union ” and the Knights of Labour, which resulted in an agreement to act together in all matters of common interest. Thisagreement, though it is not a union of the two most powerful labour orders in America, yet makes them practically one when united action will add strength to any proposed enterprise. There is,even here in New Zealand,certain antagonism, undefined, not often expressed in words, but still felt, between the farming country population and the city population. This has been the case until quite recently in America. Theie has always been a feeling abroad that the interests of the two were not identical, and it was thought highly improbable, if not impossible, that the two would ever be brought to work upon a common programme. "it was argued that it was to the interest of the farmer to sell the products of his farm dear, and it was to the interest of the city consumer to buy cheap. Then it is apparently to the interest of the farmer to buy the products of the city manufactories, etc., cheap, and the interest of the producers of these articles to sell dear. Where there was so great antagonism, it was felt that the difficulty of drawing the two together and causing them to stand on a common platform was almost insuperable. A few years back tho proposal to bring the two into accord would have been looked upon as Utopian. But in America, agitazion and increased education and a übiquitous press, appear at last to have brought about what at one time was looked upon as impossible. The lesson taught by adversity has at last brought both parties to see that there is a common oppressor, that it is precisely the same cause that grinds them both down, and that if reforms are to be obtained, such will nob be required by country setting itself in antagonism to. the city, or vice versa, but by combination and co-operation sots matters on a better footing. The farmer has discovered that the wealth he creates doe 3 not benefit him as much as it does his landlord and mortgagee, and the city mechanic and labourer has discovered that, no matter how hard he works, neither his wealth nor his material comfort is much benefited thereby. They have both arrived at the conclusion that the present disastrous state of things has been brought about mainly by unjust laws and mistaken legislation, and they both see that the remedy must come by reforming those laws and undoing that legislation. An American paper, writing upon this new political combination and complication, says : ?‘For all practical purposes the Knights ofLabourancl the National Farmers’ Alliance and Industrial Union will be henceforward one body, each organisation for convenience and for greater effeebiveness.retaining its own autonomy, but acting jointly upon a common and mutually agreed-upon purpose. . Essentially, the principles of the two organisations being ; tho same and the two aims being identical, it is immaterial whether a man belongs to .‘the Knights of Labour, or whether he becomes a. member of the National Farmers’ . . Alliance.” . . ■ 7, Another paper says : “ The combination vtiius effected is the most powerful reform 'organisation the world has ever, seen, nob .'alone in numbers, but in its unity and earnestness of purpose.’’