TEACHING TRADES IN PRISONS.

Evening Post, Volume XXII, Issue 22, 26 July 1881, Page 3

TEACHING TRADES IN PRISONS.

TO THE EDITOa OF THE EVENING POST. Sir— With men of the Hon. Thomaa Dick's stamp on the Public Petitions Committee of the House of Representatives, no other raoommendatiora could have been anticipated re the petition of the printers of this colony. The recommendations of this committee v which for the most part is composed of followers of the present Government) were not arrived at with a view to the beat mtereßts of the majority of the people of New Zealand, an their action clearly shows that this policy of carrying on trades in the Lyttelton Gaol is only another of the series of measures adopted and constantly pursued by* the present Ministry to bring down tho wages of the mechanical portion of the community of this country to a starvation basis, for their own personal benefit. Surely the " employment and improvement of prisoners in gaols " could be effected without interfering with the local industries of the colony to such an ox'ent as Mr. Dick's pet policy is certainly doing ; , and this most unfair prison competition shows signs of increasing while the present labor grinders have the administration of onr affairs. If the "improvement" of prisoners is such an essential thing in prison ' management, why confine their studies to printing, bookbinding, carpentering, 4c. ? , Make some of them doctors, lawyers, or even sheepfarmera ; give them a knowledge . in the management of large runs, and the same facilities of acquiring immense properties other favored persons possess, co that when they gain their liberty they will have more scope for the exercise of their improved circumstances. The Printers' Petition Committee has not at present met with the suocesß it deserves, but their efforts are about to assume a new shape. It behoves not only other mechanics interested, bnt master printers also, to agitate this question, who certainly suffer to as great an extent as the journeyman printers. If our efforts to remedy this iniquitous prison labor scandal, whereby respectable mechanics threaten to become contaminated with the convict eloment, are not successful this session, it is somewhat gratifying to know that we have yet o-.o other course open to ns. The general elections are at hand, and the primers of New Zealand by a strong combination which is at present being effected, are sufficiently strong in numbers to make themselvps heard on that occasion. A block vote of 120 printers in Dunedin — who are pledged to a man — is in readiness for the representative of the Government on the Ppblio Petitions Committee— a vote which will have some weight in the return of representatives of that city ; and tho printers of Wellington, who are equalljr strong, will also use the ballot-box in a like manner to ruward those local momb«rs who neglect to use their infinence and raise their voice against priuting in the Lyttelton Gaol. I am, &c. , Printer. Wellington, 25th July, 1881.