CO-OPERATIVE WORKS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15451, 1 November 1910, Page 8

CO-OPERATIVE WORKS.

TO THE IDITOII. Sir, —I have just read the Minister of Public Works’ reply to the charges I made against the Public Works Department three weeks ago. The Hon R. M’Kenzie read a report in the House that was prepared by the engineer in charge at Cass. This reply, or rather report, can bo proved to be both incorrect and unreliable. Lot mo first say the Minister’s method of obtaining a report and making official inquiry is, to say tho least of it, a rather strange one. I made certain complaints about the treatment of the men employed at Cass. The engineer in charge, who is responsible for treating the navvies so badly, is asked by the Minister of Public Works to inquire into and report on his own conduct. You could not tind anything so absurd outside of tho Public Works Department. So much for the inquiry and report read in the House by tho Minister.

The Hon R. M’Kenzio says "that the only Sunday work at the ballast pit was to wash out the steam ‘ navvy ' and to attend to any breakdowns.” Now when I visited the ballast pit on one Sunday about a month ago I watched several mon breaking down ballast with picks, shovels and crowbars, and five other men were putting in a railway line to run the steam “ navvy ” on. None of them was either washing out the steam “ navvy ” or effecting repairs. I can prove this right up to the hilt, and it only proves how the report lias been “cooked.” The Minister did not toll the public how much these men were paid for Sunday work. I feel quite sure the average rate per day is not 8s 2d, unless officials’ salaries and Sunday work is calculated in the earnings. A large number of men have not been able to earn a living wage, and it is not their own fault. I saw a large gang of men picking hard cemented shingle in the bed of a river and wheeling it five chains for lOd a cubic yard, and no ordinary navvy could make a living wage at the price. We never hear of an official being paid less than a living wage because he is incompetent. We never hear of an official having to take his wife to live in a 10ft by 12ft tent. They belong to the superior class and are different flesh and blood from the men who do the hard work. The officials’ wives have to be tenderly cared for, but according to the Minister anything is good enough for the navvy’s wife. It is cruel and inhuman to compel a man and wife to sleep, eat, cook, wash, keop their food and all their belongings in a 10ft by 12ft tent. The Minister of Public Works, nor any other Minister of the Crown in Now Zealand, would like to do it, and let me remind them that the navvies and their wives are flesh and blood the same as they are.

Inquiries of the nature made by the Minister into the co-operative workers’ grievance may be satisfactory to the Minister himself, but his reply will not remove the discontent among the men, nor will his report satisfy the public.— I am, etc.,

H. A. CAMPBELL, Labour Organiser,