A DEPLORABLE BUNGLE,

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 2631, 5 August 1908, Page 6

A DEPLORABLE BUNGLE,

The account which we printed, yesterday of the distressing experiences of a . party of men sent to work on the Midland llailway cannot have failed to arouse general ;i public indignation, and we hope to see the state of affairs which was disclosed made the subject of strong criticism in Parliament. In writing up his experiences the author of this harrowing narrative has doubtless ''touched up" the, picture, but even when tho widest margin is allowed for over-emphasis, sufficient .remains to show that' official bungling was' responsible for the infliction of acute hardship on a large body of men. Dispatched from Cliristchurch to the miserable Broken River country, in which the weather, is thoroughly Arctic, the men found that no preparations had been made to receive them. Each man was given a pick, a shovel, and < some, empty sacks. They had to drag wet timber from beneath the snow in order to make coarse stretchers for their repose. Tents there were none to spare, and the half-frozen men were ultimately informed that they must pass the night in two deserted , cottages some niilcs across the frozen snow. Arriving at their destination in the icy dusk, this large body of men found that tho two houses, which were unfurnished/ contained nine rooms altogether. Here the unfortunate fellows horded for the night, sleepless, hungry, disheartened, and half frozen. What kind of night it was is graphically described by the historian of this adventure. On tho following clay' some of the men were provided with tents, but these were wet and cold, and were pitched on ground partly covered with snow. " A hard frost set in that night, and in the morning the men's moustachcs were frozen stiff. Their breathing had formed little patches of ice on the blankets near their mouths. The interior of the tents and the frame-, work were covered with hoar and their boots were frozen to the floor." That there is no exaggeration in these latter statements will be admitted by everyone who knows the rigours of winter in the highlands and mountainous country of western Canterbury.

The story sounds rather like a narrative of the treatment of Russian exiles in a Siberian winter than an account of the treatment of railway workers in " God's own country." The unfortunate men did not, of course, require or expect anything in the way of luxuries. They were prepared to "rough,.it" a little. But such misery as they had to endure is quite intolerable. It is not clear to whom the responsibility must be referred. Either the Public Works officials at Broken River have been guilty of serious neglect, or the Labour Department officials in Christchurch bungled their work in not giving notice of the impending dispatch'.of the .men. The officer in charge of the Labour Department in Christchurch was applied to for an explanation of' the affair, but he appears to have done little beyond emphasising the terms on which the men obtain their picks and shovels. What is most likely is that the officials at' Broken .River had not been advised of what was to take place. If this'is so, it would seem that there is no real co-operation between the two Departments in placing men upon the railway works. It passes belief that the Labour Department should consider its duty properly discharged by railing men into a wintry wilderness with no thought of what they may have to endure upon. their arrival. Until some better system is devised to protect arriving workers from the most cruel hardships, no more men should be sent to Broken River.. No doubt the publication of tho particulars of this deplorable, affair will lead to an improvement in the Government's arrangements, but there is ample room for a thorough ventilation in Parliament of the methods followed in giving men employment on tho < railway construction works.