UNITED LABOR PARTY

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 2 December 1912, Page 6

UNITED LABOR PARTY

CONDUCTED BY THE DOMINION

KXECUTI VE COUNCIL

(Tho Easter Conference of the United Labour Party voted to make no paper its special organ, but to provklo official news and comments to any paper promising to regularly publish the same. The paper is not responsible for any utterances in this department.)

Till': WORKER, THE TAIMFF, AND THE TRUST.

The Wellington Operativo Bootmakers' Union recently passed a resolution concerning tho tariff on hoots. Boot majiufacturers and their employees have for sonio time been, discussing the matter of protection. 'The Cost of Living Commission secured some very interesting information on the cast of boots. A writer in yesterday's paper suggests a bonus instead of a tariff, and makes a further suggestion that, instead of individual unions assuming to speak for the working class on tho tariff question, the -whole Labor movement of New Zealand shall take a definite action stating what Ls in the interests of labor, and then fight the battle as a unit.

The solidarity of labor at the ballotbox is just as essential as the solidarity of labor at tbe mine-pits mouths. Tho United Labor Party Is doing its utmost to secure solidarity. It asks for the most democratic discussion and for the completes* mutual agreement as to what is to bo done both at the mine-pit and at the ballotboxes. That is a necessary condition to real solidarity in doing of whatever is agreed to bo done. There aro a few things which should bo borne in mind in this tariff disj cussion. First, the tariff levied on goods not produced in New Zealand is not a protective tariff . It can be justified only as a -method of levying taxes, and- on that score is utterly without justification. *\H such tariff taxes can be immediately .abolished without any possible injury to any worker of New Zealand . Second, no tariff ought to be established to promote any New Zealand industry which firtds itself unable to compete with foreign manufacturers, chiefly because of the unscientific management and the inadequate ! equipment of the New Zealand enterI prise.

The last is particularly true of the boot manufacturers. In connection with the great American and European shops the process of making tho boots are separated into one hundred and fiye distinct occupations. Not only is there the most modern, machinery, but each machine "is related to every other machine, and "to all the workers, in such a, way as to promote the greatest possible efficiency in its use. •

Tn New Zealand it is said in reply to enquiries that there aro only five classes of workers,- and the most expensive machinery is frequently idle for long periods because of the impossibility of securing and regularly organising a sufficient number of workers effectively related to each other in such a way as to make the most profitable us 3 of the best tools possible. A New Zealand boot manufacturer said to the writer of these notes recently that he had a 'bit of machinery for which he paid £450, and which had been out of use for two years, and that for tho above reason.

Again the raw materials used by tho bootmakers are not by any manner raw materials in the sense that they aro the products of the primary industries. The manufacture of leather is quite as much a part of the manufacture of boots, trunks, harness, as is any of tho processes in tho factories where these articles are finally

producd. Tn America tho beef trust, which is in turn a great power in the central organisation, controls not only the production of leather as well as beef, but also controls the manufacture of all articles whoso raw material is leather.

Tho winter was told in Leeds, in England, by the superintendent of the Co-operative Society of that city tAvo years ago, that although, they had a tannery as well as boot factory they were unable to produce hoots in such a way as. to save to the co-operators the economies which ought to ho saved by co-operative production and the reason was that they wero unable to buy the materials for making certain grades of boots, and thoso tho most profitable to manufacture, as cheaply as they could buy the boots completely manufactured.

j This is trufc in many other lines controlled by great monopolies. In America a dealer can buy materials with which to make. cigars. Tlie bar- ' noss-maker can buy the finished lea- j t'her -with which to make tho harness, i Is it not perfectly evident that tho abandonment of the tariff of a trust control product would not necessarily lower tho selling price for which tho goods can be finally offered in Now Zealand ? The protective system, however,

ought not to bo established to protect leather-making and boot-making as separate undertakings, and it certainly ought not to be established with a view of securing tho production of boots within New Zealand under the wasteful, incompletely organised and unscientifically managed manufacturing enterprises now engaged in the | Iwot industry.

It would be possible to abandon the tariff fin such a way tjiat instead of securing advantages for New Zealand consumers it would simply extend the territory of the foreign monopolies. The first thing essential is for manufacturers, as well as workers of 1 New Zealand, to understand that in the world's market both tho leather and tho products of leather are under.the control of the same great interna-, tional monopoly. To throw down the tariff is to give New Zealand territory to the undisputed possession of the world monopoly, but to maintain the tariff under the present conditions would be to doom New Zealand consumers to continue paying the losses of wasteful production for lack of proper equipment and scientific management in this country.

The manufacturers of New Zealand should bo told by the. workers of NewZealand, immediately, that the workers aro already combined to protect New Zealand against monopoly extortion from without, that is, against destructive competition of sweated labor from abroad, but not to protect or to perpetuate wasteful production at home.

It should be understood at onco that tho trust is not an unmitigated evil. The boot and leather trade should be consolidated into a single productive organisation. The Government, should not attempt to prevent this. It ought to distinctly encourage it. There is business enough in New Zealand for one up-to-date establishment. If it were properly equipped it would produce the best and cheapest boots on earth, so far as they can be producedf directly, from the raw materials I grown on the backs of New Zealand ] animals.

Such a trust ought to be organised, current companies ought to be given certificates in tho concern in exchange for their present equipments. The Government should guarantee, ,say 5 per cent., on the properties so involved, it should fix the wages, shorten tho hours, require reasonable pay. It should encourage the giving to the management- and to the men a slight advantage as a bonus for effective management and effective, services. It should require all surplus above these, charges to disappear by. the reduction of the selling prices for the boots sold by the trust direct to tbe

consumers. That would bo one way to protect labor. Such an enterprise could all the time take its choice between pinducing or importing, and either could •bo done without loss to anyone, for the task would be to secure the largest possible service, for the peast possible expenditure for the people of New Zealand. If provision were made that monopoly-controlled articles' and the products of sweated labor, whether from New Zealand shops or from the shops of other countries, were not permitted on any terms, in Xew Zealand markets,' then earnings on tho investments in New Zealand boot factories, the wages of New Zealand workers and the .prices paid by New Zealand families for the .boots under such circumstances might reasonably be held to be just payments. THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. All the world which is alive is seek-

ing happiness . It is tho modern quest ! of tho Holy Grail. "Everywomau" iu .search of love filled our theatres recently. And "Everywoman" sought love in all kinds of queer places, and found him not. Broken and despairing, she returned to her home and found him sleeping. He had been there all tho time. And so with the. pursuit of happiness. Rich and idle men and women travel the world in search of happiness, and the very rich and the very idle find it not. There is only one reason for this failure —they have lost, or never learned tho habit of industry. And industry is the basis of true happiness and national greatness. Show me an idle man, and I'll show you an unhappy man. The converse holds literally time.

The United Labor Party says that part of its object is to increase the efficiency of the workers ". The whole "object" aims "to promote- their good citizenship and to increase their efficiency." The most thoughtless comment on that is the sneer that this means earning more profit for the em-

ployer. Well, let us analyse the comment. We will suppose that all tho workers in New Zealand were hopelessly inefficient, and .bad and wasteful workers. They produce all that our civilised society needs. And being bad and wasteful producers their product is bad and exceedingly expensive. The workers buy nearly all the product, and the price thoy pay is correspondingly high. And then let us suppose that every worker is efficient. The product i> first-class and produced in the cheapest possible manner. The workers get a direct benefit from efficiency, and an efficient worker has full joy in his work. Ho is a happy man. There ig his remuneration, and that is most important. Good government—and only the apathy and indifference of the voters makes bad government possible—will give him an increasing share of the product of his labor. That is the aim. And efficiency and good citizenship always makes, even unconsciously, for good government.

So we stand for efficiency and good citizenship and repudiate the slander that all tho New Zealand worker cares about is for the small hand of the clock to cover 5 and the coming of payday. The wage-earners of the Dominion are as honest and conscientious as any section of the oommuntiy. There are a very much larger number doing an honest day's work for a dishonest day's pay than there arc doing a dishonest day's work for a tlishon-.

I est day's pay. [n this past week I have seen some very happy people of all ages. In the { great industrial exhibition at Dunedin there are numerous examples of industry in the school, the home, the shop, and the factory. The craftsmen 'and their friends come to see Accomplishment writ- large. The pleasure is well divided. The friends are not stinting in praiso of industry. yes, ,but I -hate my work—l should have been .a worker in wood instead of iron." There are many sr.ch, and the yare to be pitied. Tr.c.H v:\ ;;v;, however, man has the choice of a !;-->- by or more than out'. M-'s h-'s':v is antidote to his uncor.g:n:in! v-.o:k an; 1 . a benefit to society. By-and-bye society will learn the wisdom of having all workers doing tho work they get most pleasure from. Then the best work will bo done, and society will be amply rewarded for its common-sense. It is almost impossible to put four-teen-year-old boys to the avocations they are most fitted 'for. As a genera] rule, we fail in accomplishing the impossible, and so penalise ourselves and tlie younger generation by .apprenticing them to tho wrong tasks. Happy- is the man who. hay found his life's work, for ho will profit himself and his fellows. He Avill almost certainly find a hobby outside his life's work, too, and - that hobby will also benefit himself and his fellows. The liabit of industry is the y?cret of happiness. Fortunately, all may find it and be abundantly blessed. i

J. T. PAUL. Under Labour notes in the.Dunedin Star Mr Mills is represented as snipporting Bible-reading in the''schools: No, that was corrected in the next day's press. It was a slip in the report. Mr Mills stands squarely on the United Labor Party platform, and n'oAvhere else on this matter. ' He said he wanted the Bible in the schools, the shops, markets industry and commerce —in fact, he was anxious to got the Biblo into the churches themselves, but he realised it was quito povssible to get the Bible reading in with the Bible itself left out. Tho Svay to got the Bible in the institutions of any country is not to make it's reading a religious sei-vice ..but to get the institutions themselves created in compliance with the ethics of the Bible. That would hardly "spell disa-stor" to any worthy institution. There are institutions tliat would be greatly improved and some of them totally destroyed by a good dose of the ten commandments. <