THE LABOUR MOVEMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10134, 7 December 1910, Page 7

THE LABOUR MOVEMENT.

Sm,—L lnive been wondering, of late, what Masterton has been doing to deserve visits from "Davie McLaren, and "Peter" Howling, amUho President of the Miners' Federation. Are the workers of Masterton being sweated to death and ground down to serfdom by their brutal masters? What is the meaning of it all? I was at the Town Hall on Monday night, and saw big, brawny men applauding the most arrogant "piffle" that could be uttered. T heard a lot about the tyranny of capital, and the poverty and wretchedness of the workers'. But I looked around me, and could not find a man in the room who was not well-fed and clothed. The most intollerant speaker of the evening was clad in a tailor-mado suit, with tan boots, and flourishing a gold watch and chain. He was most violent in his denunciation of capital, and led people to suppose that a system of slaveiv existed in this country. If he is one of the slaves, there are quite a few who could endure the experience. For tho life of me I cannot tell what all the row and fuss is about. Maybe there are a few tired people who see the opportunity of securing a fat billet, and who sponge upon the genuine worker by telling him all sorts of tnrradiddles. It is the old saying illustrated anew, and the lellow who talks most does the least. The workers of Masterton are exceedingly well treated. lam one of them, and have reason to know. I have worked here, on and off, for the last thirty years, and have brought up.a family.* 1 did not want any Bowlings or Semples to tell me what to do. I did my work, and always found my boss willing to pay me for what I did. I believe every honest worker has had the same experience. I have not been able to sport a gold watch and chain, it is true. But I can do very well with my "Waterbury," and I am quite contented. I believe that if men had not been led by the nose by these loud-mouthed agitators they would have been better off to-day than they are. I, for one, am disgusted with those who are everlastingly "squealing," when there is nothing to "squeal" about. The men who paid sixpences and shillings at the door on Monday night to listen to such rubbish as that spoken by Peter Bowling deserve to go hungry. But their innocent children should not have been robbed of their Christmas dinners to give a conspiring egotist, who abuses better men than himself, a holiday jaunt.— I am, etc., GENUINE WORKER,