MR WRIGHT IN REPLY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2521, 27 June 1893, Page 2

MR WRIGHT IN REPLY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Some one has sent me a copy of your issue of yesterday's date. I have no intention of replying at present to your amiable criticism of my speech, founded upon such partial extracts as you have found it convenient to publish. For the information of your readers, however, I must ask you to state that the railway charges given by me as showing the proportionate rates imposed for the carriage of certain classes of goods were all calculated as for a gross ton of each description, i.e., for 22401 b, as stated by me at the time, and published in the reports of the Ashburton Mail and Guardian and in the Christchurch Press.—l am. etc.,

Edward G. Wright, Eversleigh, St. Albans, 21st June, 1893.

[We willingly publish Mr Wright's letter, as we are most desirous of putting the exact truth before our readers. The point to which we objected in Mr Wright's speech was that he was inconsistent in arguing that the Railway Commissioners should not be disturbed, while in the same breath he condemned their management. How can the management be improved if the commissioners are neither amenable to Parliament, to public opinion, nor to any earthly influence ? What has the number of pounds iu a ton to do with this ? We are sorry Mr Wright has not undertaken to prove some of his assertions. It would be interesting to know by what process of reasoning he could do so.—Ed.]

THE UNIONS AND THE FARMERS TO THE EDITOE. Sir, —Will you oblige by giving me space in your valuable paper to show Mr Hammond aiid his mate where they are wrong. The Waimate Times I did not see ; the Timaru Herald I have seen. Mr Boreham said threshers, farmers, and laborers met, and they agreed on all except on two points. We know well what they differed on. The proof is here in the Geraldine district. The men that charged only.-2£d per bushel charge 3d and 3£d per bushel now. All this has happened since the Union canvasser was round the mills, and I defy Mr Hammond to deny it. I thought the Union would not be the first to call me thick-headed, and that that remark should haave come only from the " Cockatoos." When stating " 25 bushels to 30 bushels average per acre, and then there were no profits, it should read " in some cases from 25s rent to 30s rent,'' instead of 12s per acre, and all summer grubbing and harrowing, which means £1 per acre, leaving the grower £1 lis per acre, at the low average of £1 os, at the wrong side. Union man says in his letter that men have been working four days at a machine for Is lOd. I presume that was when we had the three weeks' bad weather. It is very poor wages iudeed, but will the union sympathise with the farmer that has his team idle three weeks and a man under expense and doing nothing till the ground dries ? 1 think that Union Man's opinion is very poor indeed. He might be one of those kind of persons that are making money out Of their brother- workers. The first he of came from his own ranks, and he ought to thank the Liberal Government that put them on the land. He should try to keep that Government iD power that found them land and built them ouses > a,nc * found work for their men, and gave a f«*o P««» *° the »- ™>rk Union men should renienib«r that the General Election is drawing near, and they should not force people on to the Conservative side, and M jjhey will do if they continue to carry on as tjjey are now doing. A labor caudidate will have all his work cut out to gain a country seat. They will send the farmers, with all their force, and would take the women if they had the franchise, and they would soon take them to the other side. Such men as " Temuka," and Mr Hammond, Geraldine, admit attending all meetings, and say that grain-growing is not piying, but sheep-farming is. It is a good job something pays, or we should soon be all on the unemployed list. But, iu the name of conscience, if grain-growing doe 3 not pay those who employ labor, what has sheep-farming to do with it ? When Union men gefc the farmer's sheep tl*ey make him pay more, and no o'}3 objects to pay more. But it is a well known fact that a grain-grower never becomes a millionaire The agitators should therefore take the laborers to the factories that make millions of money, and let the farmer be. Mr Hammond und his mate seem to take the same view as the landlord in Ireland takes of his tenants, that is, make people pay what they cannot earn. I think it would be a bad clay for New Zealand if Mr Hammond and tlnse other leading lights that are leading the labor party should get the b lanca of power on their side. The best thing Mr Hammond can do is to put on his belltopper and go north and stop his agitators. The farther north they go the more harm they do their own cause. Let him get them together, and have a champagne dinner at the expense of the poor softies that subscribe to the fands. I should like to know what the Union has to do with the weekly man who gets £1 a week ? They say : " You work from daylight to dark ; we must alter that. They overlook all bad weather, when the man is idle. Also the man that gets 9d per hour has now a rise to lOd per hour, and they say that next year he must get Is per hour. I think that no one would object to that if times got better, but where is the guarantee that next year will be better thau last? It it p»j4 the

farmers, they never would object to pay fair wages. I have been twenty-six yeara in the country, and I have never heard yet of farmers having a union to lower the wages of laborers. If Mr Hammond understood his side of the agreements, which he does not, he would draw a line, and keep mill-owners and laborers in thoir proper places, and then he would get the support of farmers, and get their work and their votes too. A Union man has told me that farmers would be afraid to go back to a Conservative Government. The present Government makes very little difference to the farmers. I only Bave 18s by this Government, and I pay away, according to this year's threshing, £lO 8s 4d, according to a rise of a halfpenny per bushel on 6000 bushels, and anyone with less than me is exempt by any Government. Growing potatoea employed a great many men, but now it is a thing of the past, because it did not pay, and it will be the same with the grain crops. So Mr Hammond and his laborers will have very little to do if the price does not improve. I should have answered Mr Hammond's letter sooner, but the weather being fine, and farming not paying, I could not afford to lose half a day (as I am not paid for writing), and I had to postpone it for a rainy day. But as the day is going to clear up, I must leave other things I should like to state until a future date.—l am, etc., E. BUBKB.