The Daily News. TUESDAY, JANUARY 5. SQUEEZING THE UNDER-MAN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 315, 5 January 1909, Page 2

The Daily News. TUESDAY, JANUARY 5. SQUEEZING THE UNDER-MAN.

It is because everything animate is lor I j ever warring that there is so much aui-1 f illation. All living tilings are given ; protective weapons, anil this proves that everything was made to light. It is a . natural instinct with all living things to know when the enemy is moat invulnerable, and the most powerful often use the most weak. For instance, one never heard of a combination of powerful business men instituting a "corner" in foodstuffs or other necessaries of life in order to help the weak. The weak are the greatest victims of the trustmonger and the strong financier. There has never been a combination to help the poor or oppressed among the Carnegies and the men who make steel, the l'ierpont Jlorgans and the men who win oil, the great goldmining company and the men who win the dividends for the shareholder. There is as a general tiling absolutely no compassion or veal humanity in business, especially if the business is one of wealthy combination in which 110 individual may be blamed for avarice and I cruelty.

We read that the cold has neen intolerable in England. This does not mutter to the "tea thousand" who may keep warm on good food witli unlimited fuel, but those who are thus fortuuately situated see in the despair and coldness of the great masses a chance to squeeze a little more out of those who have least, and to add it to those who have the most. In fact, when the poor are poorest, the most hungry and the coldest, the opportunity is taken by the coal lords to increase the price of coal by four shillings a ton. The coal lords did aot meet in conclave and determine that as the poor vere poorer than ever this British winter, coal should be cheaper than ever, even though it decreased their dividends. The poor are the natural prey of the rich, and such opportunities for killing a few poor without direct criminality arc not to be lost. It is a misguided method on the part of the opulent to kill the poor because but for the poor no one would be rich. It is interesting to ponder on what would happen to an isolated community of rich men or women who could buy tiie work of the hands of the poor siu'iplv because no poor existed. "The Colonels' lady and Julia O'Crady are sisters under'the skin," but it takes a great calamity in wliich both are equally hard hit to prove the sisterhood. We know that the proud lady and the pauper's wife are at present sleeping under the same trees and huddling together for warmth in stricken Italy. It is only in organised society that wealth can demand that its owner be treated

better than the pauper, and when chaos comes and there is no grocer's shop round the corner, the muscular tramp is likely to have a better time and a fullestomach than the weakling prince with all his wealth swallowed up in an earthquake. The rich without their wealth are very like persons without bone and sinew, and this makes it all the more remarkable that they should so often use the influence of their riches and trade in pushing the financially weak to physical perdition. It pays the rich to have a well-fed poor with coal iu the cellar and live in the grate. Immensely wealthy corporations in the Old Land are so fearful of the loss of a few thousands of pounds that supposing their businesses are not paying too handsomely during a market depression they close down their works and are thereafter not in the least concerned whether their operatives starve or not. The idea that but for the operatives they could not be wealthy apparently never enters their heads. It must not be thought that there are not all the elements for cruelty in trade in New Zealand, and a. season of commercial depression would show this to be a fact. It is the fashion in this Dominion to extract the uttermost farthing, and this, added to the notorious wastefulness of the majority, be they rich or poor, would bring much sorrow. Trade combines are as common, but less powerful, in New Zealand as in America, and with a depression, which, of course, may never come, would relatively act more disastrously to the bulk of the people than in Britain, where free-trade is tilt protection to a large extent of the pool who are not too poor to obtain the bare necessities of life. Protection in New Zealand has never been for the bulk of the people. Representations made by three or four small firms whe desired to make wooden legs or lobacce pouches or an other articles of coin merec would lead the Government tt put a huge customs tariff on woodei legs and tobacco pouches, making il quite impossible to buy either arlich reasonably because on n proleclim basis and according to our usual custom the interests of three persons or firms is of greater moment than till interest of one million people. Given equal opportunities for inakin; the people, pay through the nose ii times of adversity, file colonial uailci would be a harder nut to crack than tin British, because lie is developing and de sires to develop at a great rate. Ii fact, many colonial traders have already shown that they desire to become arislo crals within two generations. Million aires who combine retaliate that thej have been driven to combination by i similar combination for mutual protec tion by the hand to mouth worker. Tha is to say, the millionaire believes he lia: as much right to remain a millionairi as a pauper has a right to bread. Tin millionaire and the great trader stea through a long series of years and some times from generation to generation The law never touches trade theft l>; inordinate profits, but should the mil lionaire's meanest servant steal the pric of a family feed, there is a .yawnin; gaol for him. Strikes and lock-outs an illegal in New Zealand, but proteetioi isn't, and much protection in time o trouble would be worse than lock-outs We always boast that there are u( very wealthy men in New Zealand, bin there arc thousands of men who usi all the wiles of the wealthiest "boodlcr' .who ever llourised in America in ordei 'to get wealthy in a hurry. In a eoun try where the sturdy virtues of tin pioneer should flourish rather than the sins of the commercial adventurer, it is unfortunate that we have 100 quickly copied the worst features of tlie old world in a wild attempt U> get wealthy at the expense of our neighbors. Because of this commercial "sliiuncss," which is another kind of word for theft, an 'extraordinary excess of value is set on common things even though there has been no extraordinary expense involved in (heir manufacture. This is only a good system while the raw products of the country maintain a high price, and the money-lender is kind enough not to enquire for his principle.