ANDREW CARNEGIE AND LABOUR.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2399, 15 September 1892, Page 4

ANDREW CARNEGIE AND LABOUR.

Mr Andrew Carnegie is not altogether as popular in America as so publicspirited a man might reasonably expect to be. It is not alone his rebellious workmen who say illnatured things about him. The newspapers, even of his own Pittsburg, do not always lift up their voices in his praise; and since the troubles began at Homestead many of them have been saying exceeding disagreeable things about the millionare ironmaster who has amassed a huge fortune by keeping an eye on the tariff. The JN'ew York World, for instance, devotes nearly eight columns of a Sunday issue to taking up the case of the Homestead men against their master. Mr Carnegie, the World says, is the foe of labour. As his millions have increased from year to year so have the wages of his employes decreased. The strike at the Homestead Steel Mills may be the decisive battle in the war between Andrew Carnegie and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers which has been waged for years. Slowly but surely the Union workmen have been driven back. One by one Mr Carnegie's mills have been filled with European labourers, and the American workmen have been scattered and driven forth from their homes to seek a living among strangers. The ideal protectionist, the man of millions acquired through the working of a high tariff on steel, is the foe of organised laboixr, because organised labour can and does keep the scale of wages at a living rate. Unorganised labor must work for what Mr Carnegie offers to pay, and if the scale is too low it must submit because it has no friends, and has no resources. Andrew Carnegie's ambition for years has been to bo the master, the one dictator, in sole control of t]).ose who affixed their signatures to his pay i'oli. Q]}§ by one he has attacked the organised bodies "whose rnembers manned his various steel plants, and in more than one instance his efforts have been successful. The Edgar Thompson Steel Works at Braddock were the scene of a prolonged and bitter conflict between the workmen and the but Carnegie triumphed. When he was recognised as the sole protector of liis employes, the one man upon whoso mercy their situations and their daily bread depended, Mr Carnegie waxed gracious, and presented the town of Braddock with a library, " Andrew Carnegie can afford to spend 1,000,000 dpi. in this struggle at Homestead," said a Pittsburg iron manufacturer to the World reporter. "If ho defeats the Amalgamated Association, he can fix a rate of wages and maintain it for 10 yesu'3, The prestige of a victory at Homestead will piautt him jn a position to pay whatever he chooses to every one of his 20,000 employees. If he loses 1,000,000 del. before he beats the Homestead workmen he wiJL still be a gainer, because he can sit at; a desk and make 1,000,000 dol. assessment upon all his different mills. The amount can be paid in a year with Carnegie as the sole dictator of every man's pay."