The Wairarapa Daily TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1890.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3585, 12 August 1890, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1890.

The tension between labor and capital in New Zealaud has caused many thoughtful men to believe that the law should be invoked to establish arbitration courts which would settle labor difficulties. This would bo a first step towards imposing upon the legislature tho responsibility of fixing rates of wages in various industries, Is it desirable that the rate of wages should be regulated by law in tin's colony? Should the legislature establish a minimum below which no employer should pay wage's or employe accept them? This is no new question, for fifty years ago it was argued out in England during a period prior to tho corn lawreform. It was then argued and all subsequent experience has endorsed Ilia argument that if the State in the interests of humanity intervened it would fail in carrying out its humane intention. If for instance competition amongst workmen to obtain employment is such that there ceases to »e a sufficient remuneration for their labor, how worild it be if a master who employs, suy flhmjijredmen, were ordered by tho State to.

pay them more liberally? The amount which the maEter has to spend in 7/sgcs is limited, and the sum of it which has, under the old scale, sustained g hundred men,- will, under the new one, attain, only eighty. The eighty by the change jar ( e bettyr paid, but the twenty are left without any pay at all. l'ho well inteniioncd humanity which brings about & ohango like this, finds that it has only.made matters worse. Two circumstances at all times tend to cause ft fali in wages, one is an increase of population, Jhe other a diminution of capitßl. l "'4gainst both these circumstances legislation is powerless and unionism is impotent. Evoryoue would be pleased if a reasonable rate of wages could be established and secured, but it cannot. All that legislation or unionism can effect is Jo prevent children torn being overworked j from I'ejng bo employed that the health and vigor of epsßwgjjflnerations become impaired, The law ejinnot create an additional amount pf mM to be diatiributed over the population iu jtlje Bhape of an advance in wages, exempting by creating loans I and this expedients' one which has been'exhausted lii this colouy, hut the law gan say to all parents and masters—you spjj not profit by the labors of the child to the ruin of its health and the loss of all period for mental aud moral discipline.' As a rule when questions Jiko these have been raised some .d,wp and wide ; spread distress has prevailed sueh as we have neyer known or experienced, in New Zealand, and thero has been: < some excuse for men being thrown;! off their balance by the contemplation of Hie irreparable ruin or starvation , of thousands of thoir fellow creatures but here there has not >sfe» tho

wcuae, and men are 1 crying " wolf when there is no" wolf' at tlie door, ana" tbemen who ory wolf are not the ill-paid laborers in the community, but the better paid momberfl of the labor army.