THE Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1894. LABOR TROUBLES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2649, 21 April 1894, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1894. LABOR TROUBLES.

The March number of the Review of Reviews contains an article on “Labor Troubles, and their Cure,” by the Honorable W. P. Reeves. An excellent photograph of the honorable gentleman also appears in the same number. The article is delightful reading, not less for the thoughtful and sympathetic manner in which the subject has been treated, than for its good taste and merits from a literary point of view. Nothing has more frequently disgusted us than the high-sounding phraseology in which articles on the labor question are frequently couched. We have never read one of these articles without coming to the conclusion that the object of the writer was to display his knowledge of what is colloquially known as “ dictionary words” more than to educate public opinion, and that they are more frequently prompted by vanity than by any desire to do good. Mr Reeves cannot be accused of this fault. There is a ring of sympathy, of earnestness, and of appreciation of his subject about his article that cannot fail to convince his readers of his sincerity. Every sentence is clear, concise, and Well turned; the language, though simple, is as tersely vigorous as it is rythmical, and the subject is reasoned out with logical precision. It can be truly said of it that “he who runs may read,” for it is so clear that the illiterate can understand it as readily as the learned.

In this article there are many hints and suggestions which may set the capitalist thinking. “If the lot of the average worker were untroubled,” says Mr Reeves, “he would not so often throw down the gauntlet to Capital and Fate.” This reflection may possibly make capitalists ask themselves : Would it not be better to remove some of the troubles of the worker, than drive him to resort to dynamite ? To show how thoroughly Mr Reeves appreciates the hardships of one looking for work in these colonies, we need only quote the following sentence: “ The vast free spaces of Australasia may be only so many weary leagues to be plodded over in search of employment, where he may have ample room to plod but not to settle, and where hunger and thirst may be his grim companions on his wayfarings.” What a true and sympathetic picture of a certain phase of colonial life this is, and how appropriately are pointed out the hardships of the unemployed in a sparsely populated country. After indicating many of the privations the workers have to endure, Mr Reeves deals with strikes, which he regards at the best as an evil. He complains that no history of strikes has been written, and in the absence of any proper data has had to resort to blue books, magazines, newspapers, and speeches. From these he gathers that about half the number of strikes which occur prove successful from the workers’ point of view, and even then the losses and privations they entail are something terrible. Mr Reeves summarises the losses as follows; The American Commissioner of Labour, after recording 1491 conflicts previous to 1881, reckons that in the United States from 1880 to 1886, there were 3902 strikes involving 22,304 establishments, and 1,302,000 work-people; 175,000 labourers were in the same period involved in 2214 lock-outs. The men’s losses in the five years’ fighting have been estimated at the enormous figure of ten millions sterling, the masters’ at more than a million and a half. The trade levies alone were set down at a quarter of a million sterling. The number of strikers who succeeded in wholly or partly gaining their point was about equal to those who wholly failed. I shall mention elsewhere the magnitude of the late cotton strike in South-East Lancashire. It can be equalled as far back as 1829, when the Manchester spinners struck, and lost a quarter of a million in wages, and when in the following year the Ashton and Stanley Bridge spinners forfeited as much. In a lock-out on the Clyde, the unions disbursed £150,000 in strike pay, and lost £312,000 in wages. Another Manchestei strike is put down as coating the men £BO,OOO, and the employers nearly four times as much. The Preston strike in 1854 deprived 17,000 workers of £420,000 of wages. The South Wales miners’ strike in 1873 cost three quarters of a million in wagesalone. When we recall all that is meant by these figures, and conjure up even the faintest picture of the suffering and wretchedness entailed; recalling how the savings of thrift vanish away, how homes are lost, families are broken up, the ties of a lifetime are snapped, women have to hunger,; and children face the cold half-clothed, we must indeed confess that the price paid for a labour victory is always high. What is to be said when this price is paid, not for victory, but for defeat and humiliation, when after all these sacrifices workmen see their cherished union shaken and discredited; their leaders, it may de, in prison ; their places taken by the hated “blacklegs”; their families eating the bread of charity; themselves driven out to wander and beg for the work they renounced ?

Mr Reeves’s remedy is “ conciliation, backed by compulsory arbitration,” and wo confess that we cannot see how any man can disagree with him. The remedy of course is not new, for Mr Reeves has on more than one occasion carried a measure embodying it through the House of Representatives, and it would have been in operation in this colony now only for the Legislative Council. We have never been able to understand how it is that employers prefer to fight out strikes than have disputes settled by a competent Court of Arbitration, but they do, whatever their reason for it is, and the very fact that they are opposed to a peaceable settlement indicates that their :J «* of the case is not the best. Wo Mv Reeves to) the manly congratulate . ’ , '' v " an d have no tone of his defence ot la , ' doubt that the workers of this colony .. . feel when they have read it that ho has put them under a further obligation to him. No man in this colony has done more for labor than Mr Reeves, and the publication of the article in question is not the least of his works.

Ckkalminh Fiinnmi.i,. —On Thursday evening last, about 7 o'clock, a trial was made of the Geraldine (irebcll iu its new position. Judging from the volume of sound which now comes from the bell the new position is infinitely better than the old one. The bell can now be heard at a considerable distance, whereas previously the sound seemed to bo concentrated somewhere about the roof of the eagiae-shed,