The Standard Grain Sack.

Feilding Star, Volume XXI, Issue 127, 28 November 1899, Page 4

The Standard Grain Sack.

At the annual meeting of the Napier Chamber of Commerce last week, a letter was received from Mr T. Ronaype, General Manager of Railwayß, stating that a petition from the Lytfcelton Lumpers' and Wharf Labourers' Association had been presented to Parliament last session, asking that the. weight of sacks of grain should be reduced from 2401 bto 2001 b avoirdupois, on the ground that the carrying of the former weight injuriously affects the men. The committee which dealt with the petition referred it to the Government for favourable consideration, and .expressed tbe opinion that legislation should be introduced dealing with the subject. The Chamber's opinion thereon was asked, the Government being in favour of redncing the weight to 2001 b. Mr J. H, Ooleman Baid that he thought that this was evidence of the decline of the Englishman. When he was a boy sixteen years of age, at a flour mill, the sacks they had to carry each weighed -2801 b, here the sack only weighed 2401 b, and if a man couldn't carry that weight he had better remain home and mind the babies, and lefc his wife do the work, Captain Tod said, from his experience, no man had ever become exhausted lifting grain sacks, after working from morn to night. It seenaed to be simply a trades' union movement in order to get. more men employed to' carry a certain quantity of cargo. The letter was received.