SUNDAY WORK ON THE GOLDFIELDS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 15, 19 January 1898, Page 2

SUNDAY WORK ON THE GOLDFIELDS.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —While recognising the fact that He who instituted the Sabbath well I knew that the labourer requires a rest one clay in seven, I cannot help thinking that a grave error has been made in the framing-■ of the Sunday Labour in Alines Act. I hold that it was quite right to stop mining on Sunday, as apart from the miners having the Sunday to themselves, it means; that one-seventh more men would get employment if the crushing of the ore was allowed on Sunday, and this is where, the error was made. So far as the Upper Thames is concerned, some men will be required in the batteries on Sunday or tlie whole thing will collapse. It only requires three or four men to keep a battery going on a Sunday, and it means that as at present one man in seven are already discharged from the mines in Karangahake, Waitekauri, and YVaihi. This is a far more serious business than most peojole think. One hundred and twenty men are already discharged, the greater number of them married men with families, many of them, like myself, having struggled for the last two or three years to get a home and bring- their families here, and now these men will have to sacrifice their homes to get away, as there is no other kind of employment for them. I greatly fear we are killing the goose that lays the golden egg. There was a howl raised about the fat man a few months ago, but I cannot see where 't< comes in. There is only one fat man in the whole of the Upper Thames (the Waihi Company), and don't they deserve it? Don't . they keep the whole thing jigging? and the Silverton Company—better luck to them—-see what employment they have and are giving, and no dividends yet. Where does the fat man come in here? The curious part of the business is that some of the men who howled louder about Sunday work- are now, because they are discharged, cursing the Government for passing the Act. I hold the Government are in no way to blame, as their Ijands were forced, but I maintain that a mistake was made in stopping the batteries. I think it ought, to be easily altered if the miners will only see things in the right light. I am not writing this in the interest of any company, but in the interest of many, like myself, who came here to better themselves. Hoping that this letter may stir all the working men here to wake, up and look after their interests, and that some abler pen than mine take the matter up, and get the x\ct altered so that the batteries be allowed to crush on Sunday.—l am, etc.,

A. CARPENTER.