RELIEF WORK.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 274, 19 November 1927, Page 17

RELIEF WORK.

WHAT WAGES CAME TO.

A NOVICE'S EARNINGS,

HARDSHIPS OF BUSH LIFE,

(By AMATEUR NAVVY.)

(No. .2)

On Monday morning I am summoned to breakfast at half-past six, by cries from the cook-shelter of "Wakey, wakey, my lucky lads." lam awake, all right; but am not convinced that I am a lucky lad. After breakfast, I am entrusted with a mattock and a long-handled shovel, and commenced to learn what it feels like to try and earn a living* as a navvy. During my first fortnight I picked and shovelled earth, clay, and rock; sometimes throwing these materials away by the shovelful and sometimes wheeling them away in barrows. The hardest work was helping to carry concrete drain pipes. At the end of the fortnight I was told that if I svished to remain on the payroll I must accept a contract to perform so much work at a given price. Fortunately the work allotted to me was only about half-an-hour's walk from the main camp, and I did not feel compelled to carry my tent to, and camp on the job. As I worked, the human pack-horses passed me on their wav to sections five miles awav.

Out-Back Camp,

Yon cannot help feeling sorry for a fellow with a tent and fly tied on his back, a camp-oven suspended from his neck and resting against his chest, and a bundle of tools on his shoulder, when you know that after he has pitched his tent, carried up the sheets of iron for his fireplace and chimney, he has still got a ten mile walk, often in the soaking rain, to tackle every time it is necessary to renew his supplies of food. A quarter of a hundred weight of potatoes, or a tin of kerosene, bread, groceries, and meat are heavy loads to hump over a hill about 400 feet high and into the bush miles awav.

Some men are unwilling to accept work at contract rates. The prospect of having to carry everything thoy need for comfort or existence, on their backs for miles, appears to them to be a hardship and waste of time. However, if the utmost the Government can do to relieve'unemployment of married men such as myself who have led sedentary lives for thirty years or so. is to set them to attack." a bank of earth, reinforced with an interlacing of root almost as formidable as a barbed - wire entanglement, remove it and its uii'ler-strßtas of clav, like soap fortified with fish glue, and rubble which is neaWy rock, at contract rates per cubic vard, then I, for one. should be grateful for something which is better than starvation. Henry Ford, with his genuis for organisation, his opportunities and powers, can provide economically productive work for the blind and the halt; but I opine it is nobody's fault that a man of the calibre of Ford is not a member of the New Zealand Cabinet. Wages Examined.

"The Newsletter," of August 20, 1927, that the pay for men employed on relief works is a minimum of 9/ per day. This is misleading as regards the work with which'l am familiar. Nino shillings a day is th« pay of an unmarried man for iis work on fine "days during his first fortnight in camp—on wet days he earns nothing. After two weeks he must work removing earth at the contract rates of 7d per cubic yard for mullock and 1/6 for rock. To earn 0/ he must dispose of about 3000 shovelfuls of mullock- in, a day. Working on rock, he is debited with the cost of explosives used. Owing to wet weather ar.d other causes, I was able to work on and average about 20 days a month, and my earnings were 7/ per day. The New Zealand Welfare League is indignant that someone advised men employed on relief works to give but nine shillings worth of work for a reward of 9/. It may, or not, be ethically wrong to counsel a man to give just "the bare amount of work for which he is to be paid; yet if he is employed at contract rates he can give no more. After all, how much is nine shillings worth of work ? Y shifts 15 3-7 yards of earth and is paid 9/. Z shifts half that quantity and is paid 4/6. It is conceivable that Y has actually done eighteen shillings worth of work and Z nine shillings worth of work in a day. Who is it that sets the standard of value for work? A successful barrister briefed to shall we say, disinfect?—an unsavoury ease, may received more for a day's specious pleading than a navvy can earn by hard work in three months. After all, which of the two men has rendered the greater service to the community. Perhaps the barrister's effort was not intrinsically worth 0/, and the public weal would have been better without it. Experience Required.

What a man earns on relief works depends on his bodily strength and experience how to use it, the nature and lie of the ground on which" he must work, and the weather. The work and circumstances are hard, but I am not kicking against the conditions, as I agreed to accept them. The overseers are considerate .men, and make no attempt to speed up a novice beyond his capacity. I cannot earn 9/ a day as a manual labourer at contract rates, and if the criterion of value of a day's work is the bodily ability to pick and shovel away a dozen, or more, cubic yards of earth then, frankly, my labour is not worth 9/ of the Government's money. Only experienced navvies can earn a living wage on relief works—the man who has spent the greater part of his working life in offices cannot hope to even support his family by undertaking the work provided by the Government. Civilisation seems to have no need for the clerical worker when he is out of work.

A new cook-house has been built, a fireplace and chimney added to my tent, which I have now made more comfortable, but I must- leave the camp. A failure as a wielder of the shovel, it is useless for me to pack my tent and shores on. my back, and attempt to earn a living falling bush and jacking out stumps at 30/ a chain, five miles away from the main camp. I have sold my home to keep things above walor, anil soon I shall be of those seeking work— where or what, I do not know.