The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12. CHURCH AND WORKER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 157, 12 October 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12. CHURCH AND WORKER.

The Wellington Trades and Labor Council recently made overtures to the Wei-

lington Presbytery, the result being that in all Presbyterian churches in the city on Sunday last the ministers occupying the pulpits devoted themselves to "The Church and Labor." it is held rather commonly by organised church workers that the Church generally does not suiliciently interest itself in what organised workers call "labor," and in the sermons that were preached not only did the ministers show remarkable knowledge of their subjects, but in nearly all cases very greatly widened the definition of a '■worker." Among the ministers was the Rev. J. Kennedy Elliott, and these remarks of his are especially appropriate:—''There was a grave danger of the Church's relationship to the Labor movement being misunderstood. The Church did not stand aloof from the workers. But who were the workers? The horny-handed sons of toil were not the only workers. The man who conducted a business was also a worker, and the man who had the skill and science to amputate a leg and was out all hours during the day and night was a working man. Where did the eight hours' day come in with, those men? The (legislation which placed inferior men on the same footing as superior men was coddling the workers. Where there was no incentive to work there was a grave danger of workmen deteriorating." This is all very true and the one of the truest parts of it is that in regard to "coddling." Mr. Elliott's reference brings back the ■, old argument of the "worst man for the best price" all over again. It reminds one that education and knowledge are less valuable in New Zealand than protected mechanical skill, and that the protected worker frequently earns more than the thinker who controls him—but who does not earn as much. Rev. A. Thomson mentioned that on the banners of the unemployed in a London street procession were' the words, "We - want work, not charity," and said that a man who could work should be able to get it. There is no question that the lesser kind of workers whose employers are forced' by law to pay them wages they are not earning are being charitably supported; that that portion of the lesser workers who are relatively the best off make the most noise about their disabilities and that a very large army of workers who do the most skilled work are never heard of in Arbitration Courts, Labor Day processions or anywhere else where the agitator thrives. The average organised worker whose occupation makes it necessary to sometimes have grimy hands is generally convinced that the worker who can keep clean-and wear a coat is a sinecurist of some kind. In the lesser walks of life, the man with the clean collar is much more frequently a slave than the eight-hour man son of toil who need not wear that badge of gentility. Rev. B. Hutson said that when he was strong and young and optimistic he believed there was room at the top for all who could climb. There is a large proportion of the organised workers of New Zealand who want to get to the top without climbing: they want to be pushed. The weakness of this system is that industrially the unfit survive and the fit, who depend on their own resources, remain at the bottom of the ladder wondering why a little mechanical skill is deemed more worthy than possession of brains or initiative. The lastquoted minister said that the Church should carefully study economics in order to fully understand the position of those who were crushed in the struggle t« climb, but none of the speakers mentioned the folk who were pushed to the top and the more worthy who were trodden underfoot. As long as the world has been and as long as it will be, humanity will be graded by Nature; abilities will vary, and the worth of every person's output in deed or thought will differ. But aay system that perpetually insists not on a higher percentage of skill as a reason for high pay but a more complete means of forcing greater pay for less work cannot last. And although the Press may dogmatise about it and the pulpit theorise individual thought and initiative must control mere handiwork, and some day in New Zealand it may be recognised that the persons who shout the loudest in the Arbitration Courts are not the persons who should control the thinkers and cram the heresy of "less work, more pay" down the throats of the populace. The Church's point is that the disagreements among classes may some day be softened and the brotherhood of man be accomplished, but such a brotherhood can never be attained until all agree that the highest skill should receive the highest pay and that the definition of "■worker" is broader than any that kis ever been given in the Arbitration Court.

out, and that, too, without any compensating advantage being gained. The wherewithal had to be obtained, and the Council previously found it more convenient and easy to appropriate—or misappropriate—the funds of the electric lighting department when it got inti, deep water than to draw on the Bank overdraft or increase the rates. The .Mayor mentioned that the Council had already spent £1324 out of a- total of £2200* voted at the beginning of the year for labor and metal. Nothing exceptional has been done, for all the main works have yet to be started. There is the metalling of the Devon road to the Henui road, and the metalling of St. Aubyn street, besides a new work in the shape of forming and metalling the new piece of Cleniow road. Then there are the Gill and Powderham street bridges —those imperishable monuments to the unbusinesslike, how-not-to-do-it policy of the Council. The Mayor tells us that the Gill street bridge will cost £355 more than estimated, and Powderham street just on £IOO more. What the cost of the latter will be when the wings are extended to the full height, as they must be before the full width bridge that was designed and promised can be provided, we do not know, but that the deficiency on the total work will be as large as that on the Gill street bridge we have not the slightest doubt. Hundreds of pounds have been absolutely thrown away oi. these works, and more particularly the Powderham street structure, which would take the waters of the Thames and carry the traffic of the Tower bridge. When the full history of these bridges comes to be written it should make interesting reading. The works

provide a lesson for all time. (For the waste the Council, and no one else, must accept the responsibility, as it also must for the very great inconvenience caused by the blocking for so long a time oi such an important thoroughfare as Powderham street. There seems, however, to be a disposition on the part of tht Council to proceed more cautiously. Even the Mayor says "We must go slow," whilst the Council as a whole appears to be keeping a tighter grip on the borough affairs and exercising a more thorough check on the work of its officers. There is, therefore, reason to hope that the Council will profit by the mistakes of the past and see that the borough gets better value for its money in the future than it has of late.