WORKERS' DISABILITIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 19 June 1907, Page 4

WORKERS' DISABILITIES.

Miy-.Uy conscience will no lunger allow uie lo delay thanking you l'ur your iirticle 01 April 21), "Some Workers' Disabilities,'' in which, by [jointing out one of the diseases from which we suiicr, you have lairly touched the spot, .\iaybe in some future issue you wiii have some remedy to suggest. We, the toilers, spend a great deal ol' our time looking luv. win k, and begging leave from our leilow-ijutn to he allowed to earn a living, and when we have obtained that leave we spend the greater purl of our working hours ir wishing our time away just because of that monotony of toil, of which you write. As you very truly tell us: "There is no joy like the joy of congenial work, and no sorrow like the sol-row of uncongenial work hard to accomplish and allowing the barest existence. ' As a boy 1 often felt that joy of work, wheu in the spare time which school and other duties allowed, 1 constructed those wonderful edilices for the accommodation of tame rabbits and guinea pigs, aud wheu the only recompense was the joy of having accomplished something great, ilavored with the emulation or envy of other boys. 1 have uii rare occasions since, even as a wagcworker. felt such joy of work thai even the dinner-whistle was not music to my siniul ears, because it disturbed me in a job that was interesting, but in the lung intervals between such recreation-like spells the monotony is deadening. Sumo ol us very fuoUhly take a temporary sportive relief in Irving to ouLwork each other; foolishly, 1 repeat, because the employer expects the amount of work done at such tip-top racing speed to be the standard for future work. Jie forgets, or pretends to forget, that men cannot -keep at the double all day and every day. Thus we learn by experience that, in racing each other on one day, we are making a whip for use 011 our backs on future days. Others, again, from amongst us try to spurt ahead of our Jellows in order to curry favor with the ! boss, forgetting that the race is not to , the swift, but to the swiftest and strongest; so that the cheap, approving smile lor extra sixpence lie may win is only his uuti! such time as someone swifter and stronger than himself wrests from him the championship, and thus the pace is set for the rest of the team.

Then, again, a man may derive a satisfaction in doing good solid, honest work, even though hard and rough, but that too often is'denied us in these days, when "competition is the soul of adulteration," and so we must haste to get it done just so that it passes inspection, It is easy for the philosophers to toll us of the "dignity of labor/'* and that "work is worship" etc.. but maybe if they worked for a wage thov would not feel it so. It seems plain to me, Sir, that if men had the work that they liked, then they would take as much pleasure in it as a schoolboy does in football. A man is never a success hi Work that he detests, lie is, to use your words, "the square peg in the round hole.-' In Bellamy's wonderful work. "Looking Hackward,' he gives us a beautiful picture of the future wherein everyone chose the work he liked best, and wherein thy work that was best liked was paid the highest, and does it not, Sir. seem a reasonable scheme when Ave kuow that* the likings or special aptitudes of a people seem just as varied as their needs, and I think that, in future, nearer than most people imagine, when order shall have evolved out of our present unsocial system, that the square plug will be fitting into (he round hoK awl that (he biggest part of the talent and energy of the people, which is at present rusting and wasting, will be pleasurably applied to the production of wealth for the common good. In conclusion, f would advise "Xews" readers to invest sixpence in "Looking backward," if it can be obtained in New Plymouth. The book would give them Mime hope beyond the bar, billiard saloon, or the racecourse. Hoping that 1 have not let myself run to too great a length, —1 am. i»tc., HORNY HAND.