The Wairarapa Daily WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 1891.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3858, 15 July 1891, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 1891.

FIKST EDITION-

The most foolish measures before the House are " the Labor Bills." The men who are agitating to carry through this particular batch of legislative nonsense are the men who pay the poorest wages in the community, while the men who pay the best wages going are to be " cribbed, cabinned, and confined." The manly radical, after "sweating" his own hands at home, goes to Wellington and talks glibly about reducing the hours of labor, and increasing the privilege of the laborer, for it is his mission to gull the simple-minded toiler, who believes what he says, instead of watching what he does. The employers of New Zealand, in the main an honorable set of men, have, through their respected president, Mr J. R. Blair, and their capable secretary, Mr Henry Wright, sent in to the Hon W. P. Eceves a remonstrance on the score of these Labor Bills. We do not suppose that the Minister believes in them one whit more than do thd employers, but they are useful to catch votes with, and from this point of view they must be put forward regardless of the mischief they are likely to do to thfi Colony, and to the working men ol the Colony. We have to thank the Employers Conference for putting on record calm and dispassionate reasons which show conclusively that the proposed legislation is pernicious. These employers claim already to have reared an industrial fabric in this Colony, which is of immense value to the country, but which must wither under the blighting influences now brought to bear against manufacturing industry. Indeed, they dispair now of New Zealand ever becoming a manufacturing country, and state plainly that the uncompromising tyranny of labour will be followed by a reduction of wages. It is almost a wonder to ut& that the working men who are now agitating throughout the Colony have not yet discovered that the first effect of their present crusade is to reduce the sum paid away in wages, and the second to decrease the amount paid to each individual worker. The Unions will jet bring the rate of wages throughout the Colony down from seven shillings to fiva shillings a day. All the Labor Bills in the world won't keep them up—wages, like " Humpty Dumpty," will have a great fall, and all the King's horses [and all the King's men won't put them up again. There are parts of Europe, where for generations the Government settle by law how a meo shall work, and when he shall labor and what sum he shall be paid, but' this is done on the assumption that the workers are like children, that they need gaidance and protection. The true Colonial spirit is the very opposite to this. The genuine colonist ceeds no Government to tell 1 him how, whep and where to work, and what he is to receive for his labor, i All he asks is the freedom of a free country, so that he may go where he i likes, and make his own bargains, i It ie on the "free couHtry " principle ; that thousands of colonists have worked their way upwards to wealth and happiness. The spiritless deni < zens of our towns, who look to the ' Government for assistance in matters 1 where they ought to help themselves, ' are a degenerate and degraded 1 people. Of course their votes count

at the ballot box, but tbey in no way resemble the colonists of New Zealand who have made the country what it is by the strength of their good right hands, and who would laugh to scorn the meretricious aid of Labor Bills