THE STANDARD WAGE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2709, 13 January 1910, Page 2

THE STANDARD WAGE.

THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

You did not know John Dewar, and yet you pass liim in the streets. He is a little shabby and listless; his trousers are frayed; and he smiles bravely. Eor the trade unions, by insisting cm a standard rate of wage, have committed a great wrong, and John Dewar, with hundreds like him, is the victim. He came home smiling, but his eyes held a great fear. “You’ve got a job,” his wife said, scarcely stirring from the fire. “Ay, John, an’ boo lang will ye keep it:"’' “AYife, wife —oh woman, Mary, the trade’s no’ what it was; Mary, just twa bursts noon; that’s a’!”

“Ay,” she said, “an’ boo dae other folk manage to keep their jobs? . . . . Ay, you’re waist in the shop!” On a bench next to John a new-com-er like himself was set to work at the same task at the same moment. He toiled with straining sinews and aching arms. One of them would have to go, and slowly but surely John was falling behind! , A rumor had come that somewhere one of the “lame-dncks” of tlie trade was working for a halfpenny an hornless than the “standard wage” ancl rage simmered in the hearts of the men.

“What he wants” said Marshall, fumbling in liis coffee pitcher for ail egg, “is a brick on the head, an mind ye’ he’U get it !” “Maybe,” said John, gulping at Ins pitcher, “he had a wife an’, bairns—like!” , „ “Just a blackleg,” said Marshall. “What’s his fafe wife to your fellowman !” “A puir joiner,” said Lindorse, biting savagely into a chunk of innocent bread, “aye bcliint the others iu his world” “I’ve heard tell,” :Dcwar said m a voice which trembled a little, “that- in the aide! days when there were trades’ guilds a man had to do a piece o wark before he could be admitted to be a journeyman—a dovetailed ash bucket it was. Noo, my idea is this, if there was a board o’ maisters an’ men that could license a man that wasna’ maybe just up to the thing to work for maybe a farthing an hour less it micht be a guid thing! Na, na,” he said hastily, “I wadna work for less than the standard rate. Na ! But there micht be some —folk that couldmi- get a job at the standard.”

“Ay,” Marshall said, “a- fine thing that wad be i bring doon your fellowman’s wage. Man for man, Lindorse, the standard rate o’ pay !” John was grey and silent. There was no help for him.' He was only a lame duck finding a fortnight’s work here and a fortnight’s work there, and half his year idle. How could lie tell the woman he had married that no man would keep him, for, in the course of a fortnight he was over an hour behind the others? An hour was not much, but it meant starvation. The surly foreman would come up the stairs, he would stand looking at him, and then say “Grind your tools!” .Once on his way to the blackened and slimy water-pitcher John’s opponent paused at the end of the bench. “Man, that’s a fine free-workin’ bit o’ timber,” he said, this being in such circles a mark of great politeness.

“Just, cubs like a bit o’ cheese,” said John, flicking away the dust with his apron. “Av! An’ it was you that mairrit the lassi.e at tlie Burn Mill. A grand bit o’ wood. Aye livin’ ?”

“Ay.” “Just that! * Man, it’s a fine bit o’ timber? Ony bairns?” “Ay, two,” said John. “ Juit that noo ! Man, it’s a grand straight piece o’ wood.. No’ me, 1 liaena’ a wife !” And then something seemed to happen to his opponent's work, and John finished a clear two hours ahead. “Wife,” he said when he reached home, “ay, there’s been a pay-off the niclit 1” “Ay, John,” she said, “an’ it’s you, I suunose!” - “Me,” he said angrily, “it’s yon man that cam’ coortiu’ you! Ay, I lickit him- clean.” he said, thrusting Ins thumbs into liis waistcoat. “What wad ye hae dune if ye’d marrit yon man? 1 lickit him at windows, I did that!” , “Ala man,” she said, with tears in her eves, “I am gled; I’m that gled!” A.AY. in the “Glasgow Herald.”