THE CARGO, THE WORKER, AND DUTY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1235, 18 September 1911, Page 4

THE CARGO, THE WORKER, AND DUTY.

REMARKS BY MR. CUTTEN, S.M,

During tho courso of somo magisterial comments last Friday on tho general question of cargo broaching, Mr. E. C. Cutten, S.3L, of Auckland, in oonvicting an accused remarked that the president of the Waterside Workers' Union had said that tho executive of the union had given up interest! ig themselves in tho question of pillaging. There were reasons why they should not do that, and one of tho reasons was of very great importance. TJio first reasiu was that if pillaging took place it threw suspicion upon tho whole of tho waterside workers. Tho second reason was if tho Court had not been ab!o to find clearly who had committed tho theft on this occasion, strong suspicion would have fallen 011 accused s fellow-workers in the hold. The fellowworkers were small in number, and tho suspicion would havo been so strong as to placo them all more or less under a stigma. That was a very unfortunate state of affairs. But the strongest point, it seemed to his Worship, in favour of tho waterside workers interesting themselves in the matter and doing their level best to put it down, was the possibility of just what had occurred in that particular case. Hero was a perfectly respectable man who had been led into "trouble. That was liablo to occur to ' any of the others. By interesting themselves in the matter, and doing all they could to put it down and to bring any instance of it to i light, tho watersido 'workers would be doing the best thing they could to savo men of the description of accused from temptation. Tins was ono of tho classes of offence whero it was impossible to consider probation or cxtremo leniency. There was nothing for it but to impose a term of imprisonment, -notwithstanding the man's character. He would bo convicted, and sentenced to a month's hard labour.