LABOUR ITEMS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2430, 26 November 1892, Page 3

LABOUR ITEMS.

Abraham Lincoln once said :—1 affirm it is my conviction that class laws, placing capital above labour, are more dangerous to the Republic at this hour than was chattel slavery in the days of its haughtiest supremacy. Labour is the superior to capital and deserves much higher consideration. There are 6,000 bakei’s in Scotland, 2,400 of whom are Unionists, and they work fifty-five hours a week. The remainder work just as their employers desire. The Labor Federation in Germany is composed of sixty-five organised trades with a total membership of 176,670. Women perform the work of horses in the Belgian coal mines. They drag tho trucks along for Is Id a day. Mr Reid, the leader of the Opposition in tho I7ew South Wales Parliament, said the other night that a man fighting a battle with means behind him could fight longer and harder than a man with small means. The time had come when there must be a change. They saw the taxation —some millions a year —for the Government of Now South Wales almost all coming from the working masses. They knew, too, in this young colony, and in older countries, there was a path which led to monopoly, to class legislation, and taxes upon the bulk of the people. There was another path which led to taking the taxes of! the people and putting them on the land and 011 wealth The one thing which had brought him into public life determined to acquit himself like a man, was to tear down the taxes on hundreds and thousands of things which men must have to live and to put them ou the shoulders of those who could boar the burden.