POVERTY AND WEALTH.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4599, 1 October 1883, Page 2

POVERTY AND WEALTH.

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.)

Sib,—Peculation and high political misdemeanours have been deliberately and authoratively charged against the present Government, and answered negatively by the silent votes only of a servile majority.' Public indignation and supreme contempt stigmatise the proceedings, and the close of the last session of the New Zealand Parliament was branded with disgrace, reproach, and infamy. The holdets of ill gotten wealth have been confirmed in their illegal possessions, and the poor wealth producers thrus,t fujcthe? towards pauperism. The voice of reason, and the force of circumstances alike testify to the folly of further relying upon such a Government for the remedy of our social evils, and proclaims that the operatives must themselves find a remedy. The power to do so lies in their hands, and in their ha,nda only. Their present condition is one of ignorance of $h> freejJoßi of the constitution. They are legally free to say and do what they please, limited only by the rights of others. By combination and a wise use ' of their freedom, they can effect ali needful, reforms. The land, labour, and currency laws must be thoroughly reorganised, so that, as graphically set forth by "Observer of current events," they may no longer " operate as a spoDge to absorb the life-blood of the nation." If the factors of production and their ramifications are considered and under> stood, the evils of our present system of currency will become manifest. The gold and sjl^er quacks and the experts of the dismal science, maintain that "wages are fixed by the ratio between the

number of labourers, and the amount of labour; but this is a fallacy evidenced by the fact that many millions of money, may be and are, frequently, lying in the hands of bankers, bill-brokers, and other public and private monetary institutions seeking employment at low or any rate of interest, while thousands of willing laborers are starving for want of employment, at the lowest or any rate of wages. But, if capital does not, the system of currency does, limit wages, and starves the laborer too besides. With such mediums of exchange as at present maintained in largely increasing countries, the value of gold tends to advance, while that of labor declines. If large sumi of idle money represent production, and the producers are starving, surely there is evfc 'dence that by means of currency, or some other medium, labor has been robbed of its just reward. Apart from the question of money value, it is a self-evident fact that these instruments of currency do deprive him, or are used so as to deprive, him, of the just fruits of his labor and his means of exertion. 'The enquiry as to whether the constitution declares, or does not declare, the currency to hare a money, value is unimportant to the producer whose great concern and interest are to know that bis labor must be lessened in value by being measured with or by an instrument so imperfect for the purpose as gold. If the medium of an expanding trade can be manipulated to serve sinister purposes, it is imperfect, and cannot be successful to all interests concerned, the wealth producer more especially must, as he invariably does suffer injury. The " Observer of current events" clearly shews that the present system of exchange is used as a fiendish instrument of landlords to deprive the labourer'of his just reward, for making useful to his fellow man the rare material of the earth, given by a bountiful Creator to all mankind. The insidious opinions of bankers and others, here and elsewhere, beneficially interested in maintaining the monetary doctrines of political economists, are untrustworthy., Good plain common sense is preferable to the cold calculating deduction and assumed knowledge of currency doctors, who for personal and class advantages, maintain that the present accursed system of all things, is right because it is, although it breeds poverty, crime, sorrow, arrogance, and oppression; augmenting the riches of the idle and rich, while consigning to premature graves the honest wealth producers, his wretched worn out wife and half fed wretched progeny. Bankers, merchants, pawn brokers, mortgage and mercantile companies, and those who deal in money are parasites who never produce a single thing useful or necessary to the human "family; they live and grow Wealthy by exchanging,, lending, and otherwise using money. It is part of their business or system to confuse the ignorant by a copious verbosity, and surrounding every* thing they say in a rigmarole of technicalities. The present absurd system of a gold and silver currency affords them a convenient medium for their operations. The author before mentioned implies that a system of currency ,can, and must be arranged so as to exclude the possibility of fortunes being made through the pdr-i chasing power of money to buy the results of industry below, and dispose of them above, cost, which should always be the limit of price. If we have not fallen so low beneath the base injuries inflicted upon us by a treacherous Government as to feel no resentment for wrong; if we are not so embruted and degraded by poverty or meanness as' to sell our political privileges on election day for a few shillings, and deem them of more value) than abstract considerations, we must awake, arise, and fight in our own cause, or be for ever fallen.—l am, &c.j i

' Refobmkb.