CO-OPERATIVE CAMPS.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5568, 26 October 1910, Page 2

CO-OPERATIVE CAMPS.

Alv AWFUL LIFE

[ The revealing searchligfat of the i thoroughly candid critic, was thrown •ipon the lives; of won in the railway co-operative camps by tho fe. ij. C Cruickshank at tho mission .Meeting in connection with the Anglican Synod, A'ucklnnd, l a sUe4 vsays tlio Herald). As a worker in

--omo of tho Eng-iish slums, ho said he thought he h'adl seen sonic lif« ■ that was- "pretty hefty," as lie phrased it. In the railway camps k knew there were some very fine ram, umd ho would never characterise t whole community of men by obo term. Hut on the whole ha had never soen lives so degradeil as ho fyA seen iti the back blocks Co-oi)«rativ« railway camps in Now IZealufld, H was too awful for words. He' ««i convinced that man coukl jiot live without the God-given 'blessing o| poverty. The men in those camps could knock out 10s qr los ti day ivith ease ; there was nothing tg =.-top them drinking, for they- knew iJk\v coukl bo sure of. throe meals a day, and they (Icljnsed themselves in .v way that one would n«ver sco IB the worst slums in iEnglaml, 'Jky livod in tents lurt by 12ft; it nbr ed 364 4 ilays a year, moroor less; and they had absolutely no rtcri'ation durinff their long leisuro huura, but to twiddle their thumbs. One of the-m had told him that to pass the time they had even read tho advertisements on the jam tin labeli backwards. Almost anybody, would drink in those circumstances. It W(W a scandal that thesot uncn *hoji)d 1« alloAreiJ \q jivo euuh a life, withogt any provision for their recreation. U he had had^ the money to d6;it, he would have started a temperance cafe himself, and run it under Church auspices among the camps, unU.-tlitt would have saved many «, man. Continuing his remarks, Mr Cfirickshmilc soft! that many of the railflTjj'.woik-t-rs wuro the stum of crenliott,; l)»t the gneatost UuilUtuity he ajid" W» fellows had to contend with was the sending of remittances from Finland, lie implored Itis hearers, •il 'Amy ever had a black sheep 3d iU family, not to let him boconw ivTomittance man. Thai wustho biggest curse that uoukl happen to, uinon. One of tbe speaker's friends ' bail known a, remittance man w'fto hii an oinJor, ppyivliW ioiiearer i& JCIOOo, and he had had muny before that. Mi- CniicksJiank said that there was great need, not only for more clergymen, but for lay workers to !?o into the back blocks.