*THE
WORKER*
Brisbane,
March 9, 1895.
Bystanders'
Notebook.
GOOD
GOVERNMENT.
Dibbs,
ex-Premier of New South Wales, fondly believes that the memory of his
government will be handed down to posterity as of men who have done
their duty. If it is the duty of a government to be violently
partisan to everything bearing the stamp of moneyed interests: to use
the people's credit to bolster up rotten banks; to sanction the
beating of women at Newcastle by police; to supply arms and police to
the employers at a moment's notice and gaol the leaders of strikes;
this government deserves to be reverently remembered by posterity as
having done its duty faithfully and well. But if – as some of us
are bold enough to think – it is the duty of a government to so
control the affairs of the State that no one class shall receive
benefits demised to another class; to so control the nation's
production that order and economy shall prevail in the place
planlessment and waste; to so conserve the happiness of a nation that
its people shall not walk the streets in thousands ragged, hungry,
demoralised, begging or turning over the rubbish heaps and
quarrelling with the very dogs in the gutter for a morsel of
discarded food, but shall be employed at some useful avocation and be
happy in
the consciousness of freedom from want, and and lastly to so
administer the finances of the nation that the national wealth shall
not be yearly absorbed by foreign bond holders, nor the life's blood
of the nation drained by a greedy Shylock. If this latter be the duty
of a government how have George Dibbs and his colleagues acted up to
our ideal, in how worthy a manner have they fulfilled their destiny.
Let their names be handed down with universal execration, for they
have persecuted the beloved of the people and sold them into bondage.
MAY DAY.
A WISE
PREMIER.
Nature
often hides her richest gems under the most ragged and unsuggestive
surface, and evidences of her bounty are continually turning up in
the most unexpected places. The foregoing thoughts have been
suggested by the startling discovery in the Premier of New South
Wales, commonly known as Georgie Porgie, of a brilliant and almost
supernatural capacity for solving unemployed difficulties. The
circumstances which first brought the hidden wealth to sight and
caused our hitherto slightly regarded statesman, who was looked upon
as merely an addle-brained accumulation of adipose issue, to advance
with a bound into the very front rank of fame, was as follows; The
Stonemasons' Society was in a very bad way. It possess 650 members,
only 50 of whom were fully employed, 100 partially so, and the
remaining 500 totally unable to obtain a living by the sale of their
labour, as that commodity was a drain on the market. Accompanied by
several M.P.'s they deputationed Reid in order to lay their
grievances before him in the hope of some redress being forthcoming,
little dreaming the absolute and final solution awaiting them. After
about an hour's patient explanation the situation began to dawn on
the great man, features swelled with the fullness of a great
discovery, his eye glass sparkled and quivered with the incoming
light. “I have it, “ cried he, in a voice quivering with
exaltation, “We will have a new Parliament House. I, George Reid,
Premier of the great country, cannot trust my precious self any
longer in those old buildings, which are at the mercy of a chance
match. Yes, you shall build a new place for us to talk in, and vote
your money away to Eddy and other highly paid officials, also to
further mortgage your national credit to London money-lenders, to
superintend the despatching of police to shoot down strikers, and in
which to transact all the other business incidental to Plutocratic
government; and as you seem pretty numerous and hard up, you can do
it very cheap, and those of you who cannot be employed thus can go
out into the interior and play with the rabbits.” Having delivered
himself thus, the great man waved his hand to them to with draw,
which they did, wondering in their hearts at the marvellous wisdom of
the man who thus pro-ported to fill 500 empty stomachs by providing
for an escape of gas. MAY DAY.
*
* *
THE
CONTRACT SYSTEM.
The
law of competition amongst workmen is in a law which capitalists can
work to great advantage. This law is being worked on the Gympie
miners by the introduction of the contract system, thereby making
them compete like hungry wolves for a hare subsistence. Where there
was only one contract three years ago there are over a dozen now,
and the writer only knows of one or two who have made wages. Oh! no.
The workmen are doing that themselves, forced by the false system
under which we live, such system allowing one man to exploit another.
But listen one moment, capitalists. You think to enslave the worker,
Good. You ultimately wipe out yourselves. The means you employ to
crush them will end in educating them. Contract work is the last
phase of the wages system. The mining communities will be the first
to declare for Socialism, educated by the capitalists. Is where any
necessity for this lowering of wages by contract. No. The cost of
explosives and all mining material is fully 23 per cent less than it
was ten years ago. The amount of work performed is far greater
through the introduction of new ideas. It is only the greed of a few
men, or, in other words, of a small clique who are fast getting hold
of all the mines on Gympie. FERDINAND.
*
* *
WHY NOT
DECLARE FOR SOCIALISM.
Let
us hope that the coming convention will declare for Socialism. What
is there in delaying it, even though our numbers were decreased in
Parliament. The people will have to be educated up to is before long.
And delay is dangerous. The sooner we raise our standard the sooner
our aims will be achieved. All reform must come from the people
first, who then delegate to certain men the power to put the reforms
into law. Another thing must be looked after. That is some means to
raise money to carry on the campaign. The Government will use all the
power they possess, assisted by large sums of money subscribed by
their supporters, to defeat the aims of Labour. And labour cannot
expect victory unless it goes well armed into the battle field to
fight against the party of intriguers who for long have gulled the
people and will try to gull them again, only they will adopt new
tactics to deceive us. Let us watch them.
*
* *
AN
ECONOMIC TRUTH.
In
Adam Smith's “Wealth of Nations,” book 2, chapter 3, there
appears the following; “Both productive and unproductive labourers,
and those who do not labour at all, are all equally maintained by
the annual produce of the land and labour of the country. This
produce how great so ever, can never be infinite, but must have
certain limits. According therefore as a smaller or greater
proportion of it is in any one year employed in maintaining
unproductive lands the more in the one case, the less in the other,
will remain for the productive, and the next year's produce will be
greater or smaller accordingly; the whole annual produce, if we
except the spontaneous productions of the earth, being the effect of
productive labour.” The above extract contains, in my opinion, the
whole gist of political economy, and if politicians and others only
understood it was should not hear such a lot of insane talk about
ridiculous nostrum such as bimetallism, &c. &c. It also
explains how it is that bad times tend to perpetuate themselves.
Labour and Nature combined are the sole creators of wealth.
R.P.
