The Globe. TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1878.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1272, 16 April 1878, Page 2

The Globe. TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1878.

During the recent visit oi' Sir George Grey to Canterbury there was no subject upon winch he waxed so eloquent or declaimed with more force than the rights of the working mau. In tact, it was his trump card, and ho played it with great effect. He stood forward as the ehampioa of the working xnm, m>X

assembled multitude. Was it right, ho put it, that the capitalists, that class which was tyrannising over the working men, should rule ? They were monopolising all the land; they wore chocking the advance of tlie country, and so on. Nothing could have been more effective than this appeal to the feelings of his audience. Ho was cheered and applauded to the echo as the chosen defender of the rights of that class. So far so good. But now lot us look a little closely into the actions of this selfconstituted champion. Lot us see what the Ministry, of which ho is the head, has been doing to improve the position of the class, the w r rongs of which the Premier so graphically pourtrayed. Our readers will remember that when the Hon. Mr. Lavnach was on a tour through the southern part of the colony he was interviewed at Oamaru with reference to the grievance of the railway employees as to their having to work overtime without any remuneration. The hardship of this was pointed out to the Hon. Mr. Larnaeh, and he promised that the matter should have immediate attention. Indeed, he went so far as to say that ho could hold out every hope that the reasonable request of the railway employees should be acceded to. For some time nothing more was heard of the matter. Recently, however, paragraphs have appeared in the Southern papers to the effect that the railway employees wore receiving payment for their overtime. Now the railways are under one management throughout the colony, and a regulation of this kind prevailing in one part, as to overtime being paid for, should apply equally to all the employees on the railway. Now the fact remains that on the Canterbury section no overtime is paid for, although the men are working over-hours. Therefore, one of two things is a certainty: either a distinction is made between the employees on the Otago lines and those on the Canterbury ones, or no payment whatever is made for over-time on the railways at all. In either case the Government, the head > of which has been so eloquent on the wrongs of working men, has committed an injustice towards them. So far as as the Canterbury employees are concerned, though working overtime, no payment as a matter of fact is made for it. Such is the way in which the Government redeem promises made. The injustice of compelling men to work over hours without any compensation is patent. There is no reason why, because a man happens to bo in the Government employ, he should bo compelled to do what other workmen would not. The artisans in private employ, if they are compelled by pressure of business to exceed the ordinary hours of work, receive remuneration for so doing. Why thou should the Government, taking advantage of its position as a largo employer of labour, enforce a different regulation upon those working for it ? The public, in whose interests the railways are managed, do not, wo feel sure, require that those engaged in carrying out the various operations should bo mulct of a portion of their capital to meet any pressure of business which may occur. To a working man his time is capital, and, therefore, to take from him a portion of it, without remuneration, is to deprive him of what is justly his own. It must always bo remembered that the Government who is doing this has for its head one whoso great boast, during his late tour, was that ho, of all others, was the chosen defender of the very class who are now being compelled to labour beyond the ordinary hours without remuneration, How the Government can reconcile this course of action with the utterances of its chief and the promise of one of its number, we are at a loss to imagine. Perhaps this will open the eyes of those who, led away by the eloquently rounded periods of Sir George Grey, so enthusiastically cheered him during his visit here. We see now the value of his promises and the high-sounding phrases, as to what ho purposed doing for the working man. It has resulted in nothing; nay, more than this, if the Southern papers are to bo believed, the injustice of one part of the railway employees receiving what is denied to others, has been added.