LABOUR AT LYTTELTON.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11244, 9 April 1902, Page 5

LABOUR AT LYTTELTON.

TO THE EDITOR OV THE PRESS. Sir, —We are now sending our Tenth Contingent. For what, to fight for British freedom and equality of right to live. Then we have our noble Premier talking of grappling with combines and monopolies. I wonder if he knows there is such a place as Lyttelton, and, of the state of things that exists there. ' I'll just explain how some British subjects are treated there, in case he does not know. Tilt a few - weeks ago there existed here an association, the working of whicli, I think, would be fully defined by the word Tammany. Some of the wharf labourers, unable to join this little labour monopoly, formed a union, which they got legally registered and open to all wharf labourers. But lo! these three hundred association members, seeing their little game in danger, sent a prominent shipping agent up to Welington, who "brought such influence to bear that the Registrar actually registered them, then came <bwn to Lyttelton and persuaded the legal union to amalgamate with the others. As soon as this was done, they practically closed their doors, and openly gave out they intended to make no more members for twelve months at le&st.. :, As a matter of ■fact, at the first meeting' there were "seventeen applications, and it was proposed to put them all up at once and blackball the lot. However, they elected one only. So that others who make their living on the wharf, have to wait till these four tandred are put on. Then we come to the Lyttelton casual wharf labourers, generally known as the Railway Union, consisting of about sixty members. I don't know if you have to be any particular religion, but you must absolutely, be' a married man, to become a member of this:select few. The fact that there' are two "hundred and eighty applications for membership shows how utterly impossible it is to become a member, while the fact that they are undermanned, is shown by .the railway employing double that number in'the. busy season. But how do they employ them V—That's the rub. It is really pathetic to watch the foreman, with harassed countenance, hunting round tlie corners for a> stray select, ere he dare put on, an outsider. Some of these select I have known .to work from frdr in the morning till fire- at night, when the outsiders are unbluVhingly asked to work the tea hour, to let'the Tjmonists-come back to work the overtime.".' But when the outsiders go to work jin the morning, and any of the Union'taen are idle at five, they gently relieve them-for good. They have also a little clause that permits them to relieve the outsiders., after four hours' work. And all this on' a (Government railway, if you please. A so-called Liberal Government railway, too. The Premier reckons he is the boy to deal with monopolies when the time" comes. Let- mc assure him that the time has arrived, .been here for come time in fact, and : if not nipped in the bud may spread to other parts, and one-half tne labourers get all'the- work whihTthe other half starve, and we, like the Uitlandere, will have to appeal to the Mother Country to take up arms for British freedom.— Yours, etc., ~ . WHARF LABOURER, Lyttelton. • Lyttelton,- April 7th, 1902.