Page 6 Advertisements Column 1

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1625, 1 May 1875, Page 6 (Supplement)

I rpo THE WORKING MEN op AUCKLAND. Fellow Workmen :— , We regret that circumstances compel us to make the following appeal to you, and at the same time to place before you a few concise facts bearing upon our mutual interests. For a considerable time past you have been grossly misrepresented by a portion of the trading community of this city. Many of you are aware that the Early Closing Association have been constant in their endeavours to establish a uniform hour for closing the retail drapery and clothing estabishments, namely, at 6 p.m. from Monday to Friday, leaving the hour for closing on Saturday an open question. The Association has been only partly successful, having, been met by the most determined opposition by a few tradesmen whose action in this matter we refrain from characterising in terms it so justly merits. They assert it is to supply your wants that they keep open till 9 or 10 o'clock at night. Now, this is the point upon which we wish to concentrate your particular and earnest attention. We are personally acquainted with many of you, and hare no hesitation in saying that we believe this assertion to be a base slander upon you as a body, and we ask you to join us in removing it once, and for ever. We have yet to learn, that you, having secured the eight hour system to yourselves, are so lost to every right feeling between man and man, as to be, not only indifferent to the position and fate of your fellowworkers, both male and female, but that you are the actual cause; that it is your individual action which justifies theße men in a determined effort to establish a late system of trading, which, if successful, would compel the assistants to work double the number of hours allotted to yourselves. In Melbourne and Sydney the same opposition was experienced; but true to the great principle that had formed their bond of Union, the Trade Unions rallied tound the Association, and openly declared that they would not support the houses that kept open after six o'clock. What the Trade Unions did for them, we ask the workshops, the manufactories, the friendly societies, and. others to do for us. We shall in a few days meet the various trades, and the men engaged on all the contracts in and about Auckland, and shall ask them to delegate one from each calling to act with us as a sub-committee. The opposition experienced has necessitated a constant expenditure, the funds for which have been subscribed by the assis. tants in weekly payments—many of these contributions coming from young girls whose earnings are not more than twelve or fifteen shillings per week. Under such circumstances, we ask you if it is not absolutely incredible that you—the very bone and sinew of the country—should, have the credit of perpetuating such a state of things. If you support this late system you are false to yourseiTep—you are sapping the foundation of your own institutions ; you are tearing a strand from your bond of uniofc, and fostering a cankerworm about the roots of the tree you have reared and guarded with such jealous care and beneath the shade of which you have enjoyed time for mental improvement, with social recreation, and numberless other advantages, the immediate offspring of a proper adjustment of time and labour. Trusting that you will afford us a hearty response, and cordial co-operation,— We are respectfully yours, The Committee oe the Early Closing Association. I I