THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1911. TRUSTS AND COMBINES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10293, 22 July 1911, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1911. TRUSTS AND COMBINES.

The cost of living in New Zealand alfc tfoe present time is so high, that men with families have the utmost difficulty in making, both ends meet. Some, indeed, find ail; impossible to eike out more than a bare existence, notwithstanding that they are ia oanstbant employanenib. There is something economically wrong when such a state of thingis exists in an allegedly prosperous country. Meat, (butter, sugar, flonfr, almost every neoesBBiy of Bfe ooats from twenty to thirty per cent. more to-day Slhan, it did at couple of decades ago. It is true that iru certain branches of mdustry wages have gone up. in a corresponding ratio. In thousands otf <jase®, however, wages are not much than tuey were twenty years ago. And, a» for tiie mam out of * 8 %'ifi

tion dii these days of trusts, and combines. TIIO term "it.rusts and ibines" applies as much to labour as I it does to the producer. Possibly the ! labour trust is the more opp -ess:ve ] of the it wo, for this caters for vthe ' single man and the members of j Trades Unions at the expense of all other branches of labour. Had it not been for the impudent demands of agitators and their satellite®, the 1 commercial trusts would not have been forced into existence, and itlie innocent wives and children of those without the pale of Unionism would not have been victimised. As mat- j ters .stand, however, ' the Laibour Trust and the Commercial Trust have united to exploit the defenceless ■worker. The former Trusit demands increased wages and the latter increased prices. Things have I been 'brought almost to the breaking point. It is time that a Royal Commission were sat up to invistigate the position. The Trades Unionist- is no better off to-day than he was twenty years ago, but the worker who is not a Unionist, 'he he a. clerk, a farm labourer, or a Civil Servant, is in an infinitely worse position.. The Commercial Trust, which is all-powerful, occupies an unassailable position, and views the assaults of ,-ts rival Tr-ist with equanimity, if not- with pleasure. It is -time that we .called a halt, 'and enquired into itlie position. Are there combines in existence which, act as a restraint upon trade? These should be restricted ib'v law.. Are the Trades Unions making exoesi :sive demands ? These .should 'be suppressed. Is the credit system responsible P This should be modified, if not abolished. There is .something wrong, somewhere. The clerk with a family, who is earning £3 a week, knows it ito his sorrow. The casual working man, earning his 8s a day, knows it. The railway servant knows it. Everybody knows it. Will some large-hearted, brainy statesman come to the assistance of the country and lift it out of 'the terrible plight into which it lias fallen? The man who rescues it from the disaster which is impending will deserve the undying gratitude of thousands of people.