The Daily News. SATURDAY, APRIL 27. SOME WORKERS' DISABILITIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 29 April 1907, Page 2

The Daily News. SATURDAY, APRIL 27. SOME WORKERS' DISABILITIES.

There is something Jiiithctic ill tin: life , (if tin; ordinary worker in this or any oilier country. We mean the mail who works' with iiis hands anil lias m>t the power or inclination 10 i-clicine. Take tile life of the. navvy. ilaybe he I) •- {Jills to wield a shovel as a man at tin: ' ago u[ eighteen. Except for unforeseen Iciiiinees he is still wielding a shovel 111

exactly the same way and probably at thi> same rule of pay at the age of sixty The duli monotony of hi- life may lead him .o take to those pleasures which debar him train becoming an old age. pensioner. Jie may become a charge on charity, and the list .seen of him is when lie is buried by charily and someone else wields ilie shovel. Every man is a specialist if he could only iinil iiis specialty. The men who live and die in the one groove are cases of "round pegs in sijuare hoios." It is not their fault that they are poorer :\l the last than they were at the lirst. They are the sport of chance and always fair game for the person who is not Content with the groove. Much money is mails by many men and the men wao make the most money make it out of the people who are least able to all'ord it and who are 100 round to lit into a square hole.

The great majority of the horny-handed are never really emancipated, for the wages they are able to earn never show a sufficient margin to spell emancipation. A man works mostly because he and his must eat and have somewhere to iay their iieads. His leaders who are mentally more gnted than ho may by pressure induce the rise in wages that seems to spell added comfort and less responsibility. In New Zealand at, least additions to wages have mostly spelt additions to the income of the man who already had a good income. Pro-perty-owners in New Zealand do not as a general thing require a return in ronf. merely commensurate with the value of the property. They require the highest possible rein commensurate with the tenant's ability—or disability to pay. It is the common thing in all the New Zealand centres for speculative builders who have the gift of making money the "horny-handed" generally lack, to borrow enough to build houses which the tenants shall pay for. it is no uncommon tiling for tenants in New Ze.ila.nl to pay fifteen per cent of the capital value of the houses they live in. The rent disability to the working man in New Zealand represents the greatest cross. One of the delegates to the Labor Conference at Dunedin spoke cuttingly about the awfiiuicss of the slums in th, l .Southern city. The slums are there as they are in ail our cities. But the residents defend them by saying their slums are not as bad as anybody clue's slums. But in this free enlightened "workers' paradise," why any slums at all'/ Merely of course because of the individual tenant's inability to pay the rent of the more comfortable dwelling. The savage who rests in a bough shed is a better-oil' individual than the worker whose every rise in wag's is met bv a much heavier rise 'n ever, tiling else. A large proportion of the discovered crime of the world is committed by the poor. They are ignorant because they are poor. They are poor because inhumanity has caused men with better brains to become rieii by exploiting them.

The spread of education is the beginning of a. cure for disabilities of the mere worker who lias always been one parti-' cular kind of worker with' no aspirations. Jle has no aspirations b.-cause lie .somehow believes it is ordained that he shall do a certain tiling for u certain small sum of money each day of his life. The man who swells his chest, and H'lis- you that he started forty years ago with half a crown and now has half a million pounds, is not necessarily (:i be admired. lie couldn t help the instinct to win gold from men who hadn't til-! instinct. The worker is more essential to the man with aspirations than the aspirant is to the worker. A clever writer told a story once of a great millionaire magnate who awoke to lind liilllhei,' U„- *„!• .leelipaill ...f I lie World. He hail all his wealth around him. hut noiliing and nobody to administer to nis wants. Jle was poorer with all his millions round Iron than is the shun dueller on his iast crust of bread. There i- comparatively little poverty in N'ew Zealand because of tile general intelligence of the people who as a body—although there are many exceptions-—arc not content to worry along in a groove because their forefathers pottered ahead in the same groove all their jives; but the fact remains that with each successive spurt the worker.is helped to make by his cleverer mates, the spurt put on by the person who lives on the worker's work is move rapid.

The purchasing power of a pound is of little consequence to the man who has a thousand pounds. Iml it of the great-.' e4 possible importance in the man who hits only one. The thousand pounds 111:111 is, however, ti.d.<\| io pay less for whut lie buys becaus.; r.c e;iu buy more of the articles-he needs. The mail who earns fifty shillings lives in a slum and is only able to get poor food, is a worse oIT man than he who earns a pound a week, lives in ;i model cottage and gels cheap and wholesome food. The NewZealand tariff i- a disability that affects the worker almost as largely as '■he high rents he is asked to pay. When the worker grumbles at the small purchasing power of his money it is proposal to remit some of the taxation on tobacco or calico or something similar, 'the woikcr does not'thrive on fried tobacco, nor Joe- he fatten on fricasse of calico. Not clisit the remission of tax ation. however, on either cominodily makes the least diU'croncc to him. The dill'ercncc is 10 the credit of the seller, who often docs nd.t reduce his selling price. 11; is. of course, ancient liisi.ory that New Zealand mutton of the very best kind is cheaper in London than the poorest kind is in the land of its birth, that Au-tralia can send milling wheal to this colony, pay freight and charges, sell at the same price and make a prolit. It is ever the way of the fat to require two pounds of extra fat for every one pound of fat tiiat goes to the lean.

The work'T of the humfdesl grade is generally believed 1o be as important to his Maker as the tlovernor of a State. He is, 100, more necessary to those dependent on him than is the f.'ovcrnor of a State to his relatives. The worker's life is really a valuable asset to the State, but he is less able to preserve ii in time of illness because it costs money to have comfort and to get health. (!al>les come to us now and again about the losses of millions by millionaires. The hum-drum worker who has poverty staring him in the face if he misses a week's work through sickness or slackness is worth more compassion than the millionaire who has necessarily robbed the worker to get his millions. Thousands of the earth's workers habitually and constantly face death every day. They know thai their occupation will kill them ultimately. A miner gels "miner's complaint,'' a match-maker gets bone dise,i-e, many people are lead poisoned, cutlers become consumptive, polishers lose their lungs, which are eaten away by particles of glass. Many people are poisoned, many sulfocaled, some are boiled to death—there is no limit to the deaths that arc served out to humanity, in Ihe race for what? Just for a hare exi-tence. An existence that may show a lightening by increase of remuneration. Such increase is the signal for greater increases by people who are after the other fellow's increase.

There is no joy like tile joy of coiigpnirij work and no sorrow like the sorrow of uncongenial work, hard (o accomplish and allowing the barest existence. We have in Xcw Zealand at this moinent an exhibit of "sweated industries" tli.Tt Is it same—lo whom? Not only to the employers of the sweated ones lint lo the buyers of the sweated goods. These exhibits are to tie shown throughout the colony. In a country like Xew Zealand where reductions on necessities are absojutely imperative people cannot be blamed for buying cheap articles. But is is sincerely to he hoped that this exhibition of sweated goods will show 1 he people of New Zealand what kind of imported arfieles to avoid. But there is, 100, the danger that 'the withdrawal of patronage of even sweated goods would further increase the burden of the sweated. The disposition to "sweat" has been shown in New Zealand, many

times and the people should light this curse as they light for life. .Sweat-, ing means slums, poverty, dirt, disease and death. The. world is big enough and productive enough to give comfort to every soul on it. But there is a warp in so many men in the world for preying on their fellow's earnings that much of the world is pauperised. To avoid pauperising New Zealand should train the Intellects of the people as well as their muscles.