The Daily News. SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1904. AN AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL PURGATORY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 25, 30 January 1904, Page 2

The Daily News. SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1904. AN AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL PURGATORY.

Under I lie above heading the new publication l.iiV-, stu-tid iu Melbourne by l)r Fiteliett, lute editor o)' the Australasian Review of Keiieus discusses trie ever present "labour question." All t!ie civilised nations are eagerly studying each others' industrial conditions, and rival fiscal policies are judged by the industrial conditions they create. In the Nineteenth Century a n account is given by Miss Harrison ol' a remarkable book on American factory life, by Mrs and Miss von Vorst, written as the result of actual experiences as workers in various factorks. The strain ol work iu American factories is cruel, the moral atmosphere is foul, and the worst type ol' factory worker is the factory nirl —w.-li or i:l paid. "A comfortable wage does not seem to henelit these factory gil ls : they appear to live without affection, they do not value it when given to themselves, they do i :o t feel the need to give to others ; I hey sacrifice all on t'lie alta,r of luxun health, patents, and prospects of marriage. This is Lie wound in American BoiJal life w/.rrebv its sirun»ih sloughs away. ..." li,(t there nm degrees of cruelly and viVness even in American fad ones, and t'le worst, type is found in the South, for example, the K.xcelsior Mill, in Kout.li Carolina, possesses llM.tlOn spindles ami employs from I'JIKI to land workers. '■ 'Plague,' says Miss \cn \orsl, 'is not too strong a word lo apply to the pest-ridden, P|, identicAiled,and filthy settlement where tile mill hand lives, moves, and has his '.leing, honible honeycomb of lives, shocking morals and decency.' The coixlition ol the unT:i is insanitary, and all the worke:x sulVer from the particles of cotton in the air. Tliev all take snulV. even t he youngest children. They suffer fiom lung disease fconsuuipl ion) and plUfimonia, which last becomes almost an epidemic Over all is the demon malaria, which claims its tribute of victims, a very Minotaur on a gigantic scale. The heat is most tr\tm;\ M.en, women, and Children, little children of liv,', and six years, crowd into 1)1.. mills to gel. througfi their daily task as best they may, and then iling themselves down, in their clothes, on their comfortless, aheetless beds, till summoned to another day's toil. Laggards are hounded from their beds and forced to pome in. even when indisposition or fatigue causes them lo talie a day „n. f.ittl,. children, unwashed, clad in dirty rags, with up change of clothes iiinter' or summer, are driven into IJie mills f ot their thirteen hours of dailv toil so weary that they fall asleep' the moment tln-re is a temporary cessation of work. They I)*ve no childhood, i.o

schooling, no play, hut grow old in precocious knowledge of the sin and misery of the world. The houses of the Si'l t Iriei'til a,-,. ill-built Nbiihtie* run up uiihout iega)d to deevnev, coinfori, o!' sairi! ;i t ion. The drinking water scum-covered, breeds lever, tiie rel'us.' of the place is pibd between the houses, a horrible stench pervades the streets, and no flowers will grow in tile ;heat ami dust. There are no seUpols for the children,« and ji there were there? are no children free in the day time to attend them ; no plae, s of rest, or n creation. Cases 01 sickness are ninny, deaths ate many ui<o. and no statistics of births, marriages or deaths are kept, in this State. Lite in the cotton mills, it is reported, is a whili- slavery." Can it. he wondered thai, under such conditions, in such an industrial he)!, and with such vile surroundings, the worker should 'become one of 1 lie lowest human type? That, at least is impossible in this land, where a pa-leriuil (Jovernnieiit has made every provision for tlie comfort aid convenience of the industrial worker —too often, it may '.ye argued',, i at. the expense of tile employer.