The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 1892.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 4009, 11 January 1892, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 1892.

It is a pity that our local contenb porary should deem iD necessary to stir up strife and ill feeling between man and man in this district, How« ever, an election; is pending in a neighbouring city, and the only way to rowse the working man to vote against Lis better judgment and bis consciences to excite his passions and prejudices, No one knows better how to stir up, with a lone; pole, that caged biped, the unionist liberal,' than our local contemporary. He tells the Bon of toil that he is robbed of his wages, treated as a serf and downtrodden generally by landed plutocrats. We should have been disposed to believe that the average working man in New Zealand is not quite Bolt enough to allow himeelf to be robbod by anyone high or low I Of course, there are a number of rogues and fools in this community as in all others, and it is customary for the rogues to try in various ways to get the better of the fools, and our contemporary need not travel far to glean examples of real trouble on the part of the wage earners, But putting this on one side, the average labourer in New Zealand, for the past twenty years, hasearned from seven to eight shillings per diem, Now, this rate, compared with the cost of living, and the general salubrity of our climate, is an exceedingly high one. In no cimnlry on the face of the globe has the worker been better paid and treated than in New Zealand, and any man who maintains that he lias not had fair chances in this Colony is either silly or untruthful. When our contemporary declares that Iho thrifty worker with a family finds it impos ■ sible to make headway in the Colony he utters a base slander against the Colony and the manhood of its settiers. Supposing that we are not as wealthy as we might have hoped to be, shall ve bo mean enough to blame the Colony for our own improvidence, for our own extravagance and want of foresight. Throughout Kew Zealand there is agrand distribution of wealth, there are thousands of rich men who started in life with empty pnrsesj and tens of thousands of people who are well to dcand who are better off here than ever they were at home. We have heard of men who when they lived in the Old Country thanked God for- meat once a week, but' who when they came to New Zealand railed at the colony and at ilieirill fortune, forgetful of the fact that here they get meat three times a day. One such man who could not make both ends meet said to usupon an occasion, "I must have my beer," and he spent twenty-five per cent of his earnings ov'era luxury that was not of the slightest benefit to him. We believe, however, that there is sufficient manliness amongst workers to acknowledge that they earn fair wages (unless of course they happen to work for Liberal task masters) and that if they do not flourish, the fault lies at their own door, Again, what nonsense it is for bur contemporary to declare that no country can prosper where the people are locked out of its best lands. Good land is, and always has been, avail able in New Zealand at a moderate price, When the writer of the article to which we refer, with a number of big friends, look up some of the best (and in tb'js district, what happened ? Did they not sell it again, possibly at a, profit.' IJow, perhaps, having spent the proceeds of. bjs section, it is the correot thing fop him his 'bead and say, "lam looked out of I

the best land in the colony!",' There arocertain men in (lie community who, if they were given a. slice of the very best land in the colony, and had h bouse; built for them, and stock bought for tbem ; would run through their properties in dw inconceivable space of time, and then howl because they we locked out of the belt land in the colony, We have amongst us a number of oroc'odile settlers who, finding they, can do no good for themselves, v/ant to rob other settlers, who, by prudence, industry and enterprise, have prospered in the land,