SUNDAY TRAMS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 59, 8 March 1912, Page 2

SUNDAY TRAMS.

<To the Editor.) Sir,—-It is difficult to understand why the Tramway Company should be desirous of working full time, and consequently full handed, on Sundaya. This would mean that the men could not have their weekly day of rest, but must toil on incessantly every day throughout the year, which, in simple language, means numerous accidents and deaths, as toe result of employing tired out and enfeebled overworked men.

An all-wise provision was made for our race at the dawn of creation, in giving to us one day is seven to be a day of rest from labour; and man's own bitter experience has taught him that this day is essential to his health, necessary to fit him for the six days' work; and that family relationships and ties are of no value without the Day of Rest. In every country where the day has not been kept the results have been bad all round—bad for the worker, tad for his family, and disastrous to the community.

Sabbath desecration, and all that it entails, contributed largely to tbe humiliation of France, and to the whirlwind of revolutions that swept over Europe during and since the first French revolution.

On the very lowest grounds it is worst than madness to encourage Sunday work. And when it is now officially stated that 50,000 railway men are employed every Sunday in the United Kingdom, thousands of tramway and T>us men, chauffeurs, and the vast army of men who axe incidentally necessary to such workers, how can we look with complacency on thiß state of things?

We need -not be surprised at men baodintr themselves together in unions for self-protection, for certainly if they are left to the tender mercies of the men ■who are not satisfied -with six davs' work each ■week, they would know little of either comfort or happiness. There are to-day over two and a-half million men employed in Great Britain on Sundays. At one time we were proud to sing " Britons never, never, never shall 1* slaves"; but between Sunday-workers and suffragettes we win have to think Itj-m highly of our boasted freedom. However, we must not be too despondent, for at the great Trade Union Conpress, recently held in Nottingham. where 1.777.000 worker* were represented, the following declaration was unanimously carried-- This Congress, recognising the great benefits which have accrued to the workers in consequence of the almost unfversal observance of the Sunday as a weekly day of rest resolves to do ail in its newer to restrict Sunday laboTtr in the future to the narrowest possible limits consistent with humane requirements and the necessities of the age." The work of a tram conductor is both trving and laborious, whilst the work of a motorman cannot he otherwise than exhaustive, since it is a constant strain on the nerves as well as the bodV. Awl snrerr these men not onlr require, but richlv deserve, their weekly day of rest Tt. is needless to say that the safety of human lives depends largely on the fitness of our motorraen for their arduous work, for they have not only their nr to think of. hut aHo the pedestrians which are crossing and recrossinff so frequentlv the tram lines.—l am. etc., J. J. MACKY.