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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5
[the labor question]
Mr Steve Boreham, secretary of the Shearers' and Laborers' Union, gave an address at Naseby on the labor question on the 27th ultimo. Referring to the firm of Whitcombe & Tombs, he said that « they printed a Southern Cross Reader at an actual cost of 1½d, and sold it at 1s 6d. » We have just looked up the Southern Cross Reader No. 3. The book contains 214 pages royal octavo; the paper of excellent quality. Special fonts were obtained, and all the pages are kept standing. There are forty-eight wood-cuts specially engraved for this volume. Most of these are excellent, and one is a full-page plate. It is printed with fine ink on a good machine, and well bound in cloth. Mr Boreham probably is confusing the price of the paper as it left the mill (which would be quite 1½d), with the total cost of the production. He went on with another wondrous flight of fancy. « But the matter did not stop there. It was only reasonable to suppose that if a child, after passing a standard, brought home its Southern Cross Reader in good condition, the book would be available for one of the younger children. But that was not the case; the book had to be thrown aside, and the hard-working father compelled to expend his hard-earned money in purchasing another. Doubtless some of the officers connected with the department were shareholders in the company, and used their influence in the direction indicated. » It is interesting to read that he received a hearty vote of thanks. He had much to say about labor candidates. It it almost a pity that Mr Boreham himself is not in the House—he would so admirably have justified his name.