The Editorial Mill, June 22, 1895.

*THE WORKER*

BRISBANE JUNE 22, 1895.

The Editorial Mill.

Our Motto: “Socialism in our time.”

The Boot Trade Union still remains “an unbroken square,” and our artist has succeeded admirably in symbolising the stand the operatives are making to resist the encroachments of cut-throat competition. The men are shown to be standing or kneeling in the square of military tactics, with their women and girls and flag in the centre. The section on the left-hand top corner of the cartoon shows an employer's driver to be whipping up the boys whose youthful strength is being used to try and conquer their fathers. The dog is intended to represent a professed radical who may yet – who knows ? - have to struggle for a livelihood in the same manner as the boot trade employ'es he is working with brain and hand to defeat.

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The strikers are still firm, not a man has broken faith with his comrades, and the total strength of the manufacturers' blacklegs is seven. The factories are crowded with work waiting to be done – some of the employers having more than three months' orders on hand. Still the employers, who forced on the conflict, refuse a conference. The public have done their best through prominent citizens, like the Rev. Mr. Whale, J. W. Brydon, and W. K. Salton, to urge the masters to confer, without avail. Parliament should now step in to interfere in a dispute which, the longer it lasts, will cause the greater bitterness in the community.

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It is, perhaps, unlikely that the boot manufacturers, having ignored neutral and unbiased counsel, will accept the WORKER'S advice. However, we commend to their notice that portion of Colonel Bell's lecture on “The Civilising Influence of Commerce,” dealing with the wages question. Said the American Consul; The wages question is an important one. (Applause.) Wages must go up so long as civilisation progresses. (Applause.) Where wages decline society is rotten at heart. (Applause.) I myself have not to work with my hands, and if I had to I would want it in small doses. (Laughter.) Still I have a great respect for the worker because he makes property. (Applause.) The gentleman with the muscle and smutty nose has done the work, and I am much indebted to him. It is a fact beyond dispute that in a country where there is no progress wages are very low. In China only a few years ago a man could be employed for 4d. a day. There has been no progress there for 4000 years; the people have not even changed the style of their coat, or washed their necks. (Laughter.) Let us take Russia. She has no inventive genius, or if she had it did not expend itself on anything greater than a warship or a gun. And why? Because wages are low. Thinking was hard work to them; cheap men precluded the possibility of hard thinking. (Loud applause.) Take Austria, What are her wages? What has she done? When did she make a machine to save the sweat? Germany and France paid a little higher wages, and they are correspondingly higher in progress. Then let us take England, who has done more for her people than any country except America. In North America wages have been remarkably high; the muscle has been strong and the brain active. They have done more for the worker than any other nation on God's footstool. And why? Just because it was necessary. If you want a good day's work you should never screw down the wages of the man who is expected to do it. (Applause.)

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These timely words were spoken to a gathering of business men and others on Tuesday evening last in the Centennial Hall. They are eloquent, and, what is better, they are true. If the boot manufacturers succeed in reducing their workmen's already low wages, the standard of living will be lowered. They will have to spend less with their baker, butcher, grocer and tailor. A dozen little comforts will have to be dispensed with. The production of those comforts give employment to some one. If boot operatives' wages are reduced, the tendency will be to a general reduction all round. The curtailed expenditure in the case of other workers whose wages are indirectly lowered by the action of the boot manufacturers. Men will be thrown out of employment by the lowering of the worker's purchasing power, and general stagnation and a lower standard of civilisation will be the result. If the boot manufacturers, who are responsible for the withholding of a conference, have no wish to involve their late employ'es, and perhaps the employ'es in other trades, in common ruin, they should bring the strike to a close at once by granting a conference. The men are only too willing to submit the question in dispute to a court of conciliation of of arbitration. As labour Member Reid said lately. “They are not on strike for fun.” It is no enjoyment for them to be idle. There is no pleasure in seeing their few sticks of furniture jeopardised to find bread for wife and children. Only the sternest of stern necessity compels them to remain out in resistance to an attempt to reduce the wages which have already been repeatedly reduced, and it would only be common Australian fair play to submit the whole question to representatives of both interests, and if they cannot agree, to ask a committee of neutral well-kown citizens to arbitrate in the matter – both parties to abide by the arbitrators' decision.

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The Brisbane TELEGRAPH can only deal with one subject effectively, and that is State-aid to denominational schools. When it pouches municipal economics it is sadly spread-eagle. In a recent sub-leader the Rev. Woolnough sent forth a joyful peal at the reported failure of a Municipal Council to make a contractor pay a living wage. It appears that at a meeting of the Caulfield Council one alderman with some human sympathy in his composition moved that in future a clause be inserted in the specification of contracts providing that a minimum wage of 5s. be paid all labourers. This was seconded. One councillor contended the matter should go before the Works Committee for consideration. He moved that as an amendment. Another seconded it, remarking that it was a very difficult matter to deal with. The voting was equal, and the president gave his casting vote for further consideration. A councillor warned the meeting that it was almost impossible to fix a minimum rate of wage. As a member of the Metropolitan Board of Works he had seen an instance wherein a contractor was bound as regards a wage of 6s. a day. But then he got over that difficulty by compelling his men to buy their brooms from him, for which he charged 10s. each. If the men refused, the contractor dismissed them. While he paid the minimum wage, he got back the increased rate from his men in brooms. “Now,” says the TELEGRAPH, “this really is a new broom, and it promises, if it can always be used in this way, to sweep very clean.” It doesn't seem to strike the sleepy TELEGRAPH that the thieving contractor carrying on the above dirty trick is not likely to get a contract again from honest aldermen; and that if his dishonest example is followed by other contractors the Caulfield council which, when the London contractors formed a ring to render abortive the efforts of the Council to establish a minimum living wage, abolished the contract system and did the work itself.