The Wairarapa Daily THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1891.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3873, 30 July 1891, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1891.

f The Labour Bills are working their , way merrily through the House. I Everybody knows that they are shams, > inasmuch as they will do nobody any j good, and are merely passed to propitiate that foolish Moloch " the people." Between fair-dealing masters and fair-dealing men, there never has been trouble, and for such legislation is not required. The crooked dealing masters and the crooked dealing men • will not be any the better for the new laws now being incubated, because the main trouble, the crookedness . cannot be cured by act of parliament. | The clever contractor will still work ; points on his hands, and the clever hand will still get to windward of his i employer. The changes brought about by the new legislation will no doubt inconvenience many people and ruin a few. But on the other hand it will blow somebody good, for the fresh batch of legislation will foster litigation, and bring grist to the la wyers'mill. The average colonial hand is smart enough to protect himself without the assistance of Parliament; he does not need to be spoon fed with Parliamentary regulations. New Zealand is no longer a " free country " in the old sense of the term, and we almost fear that the colonist of the future will be a

poor weak-minded creature looking to the Government for his daily bread, and in fear and trembling obeying the commands of the Union which controls his body and soul. However, democracy is getting things all its own way just now, and both in Parliament and on the platform is making hay while the sun shines. The tide will turn, wheu patient and long suffering farmers, the backbone of the Colony, realize that the democracy desire to place all burdens on the land, and that its followers in a most unscriptural manner are eager to move their neighbours land mark, and in a general way to " covet all that is his." We are quite contented that the meeting last evening should have been a success, and that the members from the House which addressed it should have been well received. We do not pretend to say that there are not amongst them men who are in earnest with respect to the doctrine which they preach, men perhaps who are comparatively new settlers in the Colony, who have never taken a direct part in the heroic work of colonisation, who have never attempted to subdue the stubborn wilderness, or endure a greater toil than is involved in making long blustering speeches, but should we take our experience from men of this s'.amp, pr from colonists of twenty, thirty, and forty years standing, who have gone through all the hardships appertaining to a struggle for existence in a new country, and who have acquired fortune by industry, intelligence and perseverance. The latter are perhaps the silent men, for frequently the gift of fluent sp-.echis enjoyed at the expense of defects which shipwreck a man's career as a genuine colonist,

but they are the wise men, and when the .pfesent foolish fit for upsetting everything is over they will be looked to for guidance. For the present we must be content to listen to the wisdom of our new masters, though we fear that they are apt to draw upon their imagination rather than on their experiences. The member for Maaterton, for example, took up a few years ago a section of land ia the bush, and if he had given the meeting last evening an accurate description of his own personal venture as a landed proprietor, he would have enabled it to guage his value as an exponent of the land question.