PLUMBERS' REGISTRATION BILL

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 62, 11 September 1911, Page 8

PLUMBERS' REGISTRATION BILL

TO THX JCDITOB, Sir,— l wish, with your permission, to make a few comments on the stir that has arisen amongst the City Fathers re tho Registration Bill. I am prepared to believe that the City Council in ljs opposition to the Bill is noting from purity of motive'HjhO' health of the people being its first concern} that thero is no wish to do an injustice to any man. At th« samo time, I have a 1 suspicion that thqso who opposed tho Bill have not looked into the 'conditions that have compelled the Government to take action in tho matter} also that the provision' that licensas shall bo issued by Government is at tho bottom of the council's agitation against the Bill. I beg to offer a simple solution of the difficulty, the clause on which the council hinge its objection. I admit there is grave danger of Borne few men getting through unless thefie are reasonable restrictions provided. The idea is not original. I go baok for it some twelf o years or more : That an oxamiha'tion be held on tho same lines afid tasks as put before the second batch of men who werifc up for examination. Every man of them got his license. The Sydney authorities got there in a more way by granting a license to every man who had ,been seven years at the trade. Strange to say, those who got through under these conditions are the loudest barrackers'for the most severo test that can be devised, all in the interests of the health of tho people— and a close corporation. Wo plumber fears a test of every-day work, such as would be met with in fitting a bath, sink, or basin, or to tinswer questions to test if ho has taken an intelligent interest in the progress of sanitary science; but tha avnrage man does shrink from questions that should be submitted to a quantity surveyor, to an architect, a geometrician, to a man who has had tho advantage of a New Zealand State school education, and spent his teens in % univeraity-^in short, to one who is a_ walking encyclopaedia. It may bo all fair and square to expect the ideal standard of what a plumber should be by training the rising generation, but it is a lot 100 much to expect from meh who haye v grown old at the tradesmen who havo worked "in sifmmer's heat and wintor's cold." It is too much to expect elderly men to go back to school with the boys; too much to expect moti to without complaint t?o up for examination at overy centre in New Zealand; too much to expect a cheerful response to demand for tees, even if the movement is only from Wellington to Petone; too much to expect men to suffer all theso things and more. The council looks on and laughs. Personally, I have nothing td gain by tho passing of the Bill; no master plumber can offer me better wages or conditions than. I now enjoy here, or are to be had across tho Tasman Sea. New Zealand is a very fine country— 'the best in the world I do believe, bar boniiie Scotland. I say so after thirty years in the colonies, ten years of which has been spent in this Dominion; but thero are too many grievous restrictions placed ih tho way of honest men who try to earn an honest living iv an honest way.-—I am, etc., WILLIAM DOBSON. .Wellington, 10th September, 1911.