CO-OPERATION.

Waikato Argus, Volume III, Issue 184, 16 September 1897, Page 3

CO-OPERATION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Government supporters take great credit to ISew Zealand for its advancement in co-operation, and that whereas in bygone time 3 contractors made fortunes in the making of our railways, and that now these fortunes are divided amongst the working men who arc employed. I beg to inform these people that that being so might be quite right, or it might be quite wrong ; that wholly depends upon circumstances. If all is fair and square in giving and accepting the tender and the contractor did make a pile, he is entitled to do so, always providing that he pays fair and square wages to the men employed. If the making of a railway under a contractor costs two hundred thousand pounds, and the contractor had twenty thousand to himself ; and if by co-operation the same railway was to cost by fabulous wages three hundred thousand pounds, the State is the loser by one hundred thousand pounds. There is not one able-bodied man out ot twenty in the population working under co-operation, and the other nineteen are to be robbed to pay high wages to these co-operative working men. Who are the nineteen who are robbed ? They are the producers, who are the life blood of the colony. They are the farmers whose children before going to school and whose parents before going to bed do a full day's work. They have to be up at. early hours to milk for a factory, and in the evening both parents and children work till late and far into the night ; in fact, slaving their beait's blcod out of them. These are the people who have to pay the piper for the extra cost of making railways under the boasted system of co-operation.—I am, etc., HARAI'ErE.