The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1890.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3580, 6 August 1890, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1890.

"If a great orator, an olo(ment speakor, is not speaking the truth, what more horrid object is thero in creation," This is an utterance by Thomas Carlyle, and wo are not sure that it is not in a measure applicable to Sir George Grey's last oratorical effort. Our veteran Knight has made a high-flown speech to the people of Wellington, in which be ventured to interpret the ways, of Providence, and in which he suffered his vivid imagination to carry him far beyond the prosaio level of facts. Sir George Grey possesses certain imaginative and rhetorical faculties, faculties which enable him to rouse a mass meeting, but the trouble is that while he is indulging in poetic license and hanging by the toes from some intellectual trapeze, his hearers are wont to accept as gospel truths statements that will not bear analysisHe sets class against class, and ferment's discontent amongst the democracy, to which he acts the part of leader and hero. In his last oration he implored his audience to see that none of their children were neglected, not to let them be beggared.' ISow every sensible man knows that the change Sir George Grey desires to bring about in the incidence of taxation will not save children from beggary, and that the administration of our land laws in tho past, an administration in which he himself

bad a large share of responsibility, has not brought the ohildren ol working men to beggary. The real beggary that threatens the children of woiking men is not the land laws of the colony but its union rules, Almost every working man has one or more sonß who have to earn a living in this colony. The father asks for bread for his son but the trade unions give him a atone. They olose ths doors of workshops against boys, they will have none of boy labor, they claim that the wages fund of the colony Bhall be divided amongst adult laborers who are members'of unions, and would turn into the streets the lads and lasses who havebitbertofound occupation in work-rooms, and an opportunity of earning a livelihood, Thevulosof Unions are stringent against thp majority of the sons and daughters of the working men of New Wand acquiring a trade or earning & coin-

pdteiice. Take the case.of a lad of fourteen or fifteen who-wants to acquire a handicraft in any of our large towns, and let Sir George (irey say himself what it is that beggars him, what sends nim roaming about the streets as an idler, what converts him slowly but surely into a larrikin, Dotlielanilwsprtbfijandadmm'l

Ration 1 beggar such a ; lad : ?e■ t(6l £ is• simply the selfißh'and ; unnatural regulations of tbejabor unions .whicli. crush theVladf down'."; Sir, George' Grey is looked upon as the apostle of theso..Umonßj hia word is as gospel to tho members bf.tbeni, but i 3 his word truo, and is he not responsible in a great degree for the growth of larrikinismvin this Colony, and for the civil: commotion at Curistohuroli about wlricli hVwiß bo eloquently mlent'.?/. Some beautiful sentiments fell I from hia lipß. about, the dock strike, in .London, but not a word about the proposed blockade at Lyttelton,. Does.he, approve, or disapprove of the extreme course • the labor • party in. now taking in this colony, and why in common with many other leading public men does he abstain from ail mention of it? 1 Is it not because he and they condemn, it in thoir hearts but- are afraid to say a word against .it .with tlfeir tongues, Ho.like the magioian's apprentice, has learnt how to. set the" spell'working, but does"not ; know how to control or quell the spirit which he has raised;.' His intentions may be, good, but apart from them the effect of Bpeeche's like tho one lie lias just delivered is distinctly; mischievous; and will tend to precipitate .a/graye crisis now 'ponding, a crisis 'which lie apparently does not oare to face openly,