WORKERS' DISABILITIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 10 May 1907, Page 4

WORKERS' DISABILITIES.

To the Editor.

Sir, —f was very pleased to f see in looking through your paper of April 2!) iu our public reading room your leaMing article on "Some Workers' Disabilities. 9 ' It is the best I have read in a New Zealand paper that is not a Labor journal. When Mr. Way, of Auckland, was addressing a meeting here a short time ago on the ''Battle of Labor," lie asked j why it was that the hall was not fillet! with working men, and said it was because the average workman wpuld sooner spend his time tossing two pennies on a stick than come and hear something to his advantage. The speaker said thai if they want a rise of twopence fin hour in the Arbitration Court they would come to him to battle for them, but if they wanted a member to represent them in the House, they would put in their boss who would do them out of a shilling on hour. No doubt working men are very much to blame for their miserable condition, under monopolies. They are often led by the nose by lawyers and other iluent humbugs. The Arbitration Court has just given its award in the slaughtermen's dispute, and, though the cost of living has gone up considerably since the last award, most of the wages have been lixed at the same rate as before. I fail to see how that Court is going to benefit the worker when 110 allowance is made for increase .of prices in everything. You say that when wages go up prices go up. That is quite true, but the cost of living is out of all proportion to the wages. The Court seems to think that seven shillings a day is a living wage here, one of the dearest places in the colony in which If) live.— T am. etc.. A VOICE KliOM GISBOUNK. tiisbornc. Mav 0.