"GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD."

Evening Star, Issue 12764, 17 March 1906, Page 8

"GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD."

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —We, the great majority, exist, toiling lor tire pittance which keeps the wolf away. Week in, week out, ’tis the same monotonous grind; but we have occasionally pleasant hours through it all. We, ns laborers, work eight hours a day, and go home at tho end of the day’s toil with pleasant thoughts of the few remaining hours, which we have to ourselves before retiring to rest. We have unions, we have tho public sympathy in our endeavors to demolish anything aproaching slavery or overwork. But are there many of u s who have a thought of the man who keeps account of our time—the man who pays us? The man who, whilst- we are peacefully sleeping, is struggling with his books; the man who spends the best part of his life indoors, becoming in time (owing to bis confinement) a livery, nervous sample of manhood? This is the,man who has to struggle for has bread. Not dependent on brawny muscles (of which be- sadly lacks), but on his brain—a brain which, owing to an unnatural existence, becomes in time sagged—his nerves give way ranker the continual strain, he loses all interest in the pleasures of life, and struggles valiantly on, working night after night: the same dreary, brain-fagging, calculating, posting, balancing. It must be done. ■He dare not ode for assistance, or he rides his situation, and he is practically unfit for any other occupation. It cannot last much longer. Loss of sleep, nerves has brain, eventually gives way under the pressure, and he becomes a total wreck. This, sir, is one of the many cases that exist. I have just read a sample of it in your last mght’s issue. Why should it bo thus? Why should not the clerks have a protective body controlling their hours of labor? A union based on something similar lines to our own unions is a necessity these days. We sympathise daily with our fellow-being—tho man who keeps the books—-but we ought to do something more than sympathise.—l am, etc., Uioosist. March 17.