Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1894. THE LAW OF KINDNESS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4799, 14 August 1894, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1894. THE LAW OF KINDNESS.

Tukkb is a law—a law of kindness—which is worth all the laws of which tho Liberal party boasts, and it is this, law which our Parliament is ever striving to kill. As a rule in New Zealand tho relationship between employers and employes is regulated by an unwritten law of kindness, Good feeling on both sides is abundantly prevalent, audit is only in very exceptional cases that any real grievance exists. Masters will make sacrifices for their hands, and hands will make sacrifices for their masters, if they are let alone, but wooden-headed Legislators say theymustintorfereandmakesti'aight waistcoats for employes and plaster of Paris jackets for and supersede tho old fashioned kindly law which has hitherto regulated industrial occupations. Every labour fetter forged by our misguided rulers serves to prevent a master- helping a man and a man helping a master. Under the old law of kindness there has been a mutual help and aniutual service which lias cost nothing, but which has been worth a great deal. Under the new ; law of coercion the employer and the employee ranged into two opposite ' factions, _ and friendship is converted into litigation. A willing service. that a man may desire to do for a master or a master for a man becomes an illegal act, something for which fines and penalties are provided,. We do not speak without warrant when we say, that,before labour laws were enacted to destroy'the friendly relations existing:', no > bounds' to the mutual assistance rendered by masters and men. If times were bad, masters would Buffer a severe pinch before

they would part with an old hand, or cut down wages, If, on the other hand, times were good and work was, pressing, the hands did not grudge extra labour or longer hours Mutual concessions and mutual adjustments tendered voluntarily, and accepted in the spirit in which they were offered, made the industrial wheel revolvo smoothly. Now it is checked and thrown out of gear by the wellmeaning but foolish cast-iron regulations of impractical legislators.