A HIVE OF INDUSTRY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LII, Issue LIII, 3 February 1908, Page 6

A HIVE OF INDUSTRY.

The coaling of vessels in the various ports is a manifestation of work in the fullest sense , of the term. Scores of men and. women. come alongside the steamers in huge, harges, and, the preliminaries having been complied with, operations begin in real earnest. Small' baskets, holding perhaps .twenty- or thirty pounds, (are passed from one hand to, another up the gangways and deposited into the bunkers. The oerformance goes' on unceasingly > There are no . stage- waits. Some are filling up the , baskets, others passing them, and others again throwing the .empties into the barge; it is a never-ending chain of activity. Coaling at Port Said, Colombo or New Guinea, is an interesting and novel" sight, but nowhere, except perhaps in some of the Chinese, ports, is so much energy and enth.isiasm infused into the work as at. the various ports of Japan, The grimy men and women — some are young, piteously ydung, and others old, cruelly old— are all imbued with the spirit of work. The baskets are small and the method is somewhat primitive, but so numerous and so industrious are the toilers that in the course of seven or eigniTbours fully lOCto or 1200 , tons, of coal , are transferred: from .the fighters. , to the steamer's hold.*!?- 4 "'' >• v -r •