PRISON V. FREE LABOUR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9047, 7 May 1888, Page 3

PRISON V. FREE LABOUR.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—During the last election campaign for M.H.R.s various well-grounded complaints were made concerning the action of the Mount Eden gaoler in soliciting orders from contractors, and offering special advantages, in order to dispose of the machine-broken metal done at the gaol, thereby preventing others from earning a living at stone-breaking. The then Minister of Justice (Mr. Tole) promised to inquire, and put a stop to it. " But another king arose," &c., and the abuse has gone from bad to worse, and tfco trades and labour reformers must be either blind to what is going on or take no heed of so humble a class as stone-breakers, for these poor victims of altered circumstances are now producing metal at worse than starvation prices. Let any feeling man pay a visit to where the unemployed are engaged stone-breaking, especially at crib time, and if his heart is not softened with pity at the scanty indifferent meal partaken of by most of them he must verily be a "Minister of the Crown." Why, sir, the Public Works Minister has entered into hot competition with the Prison Department of Justice in the disposal of metal, and is actually giving it to the local bodies for carting away, thereby tending to encourage gross extravagance in other directions. Again, the Gaol is provided with a steam-engine and stone-breaking machine which does the work, while the prisoners stand by and look on. The result is the Government, who should protect and encourage free labour and enterprise, are using the people to crush it out of existence. I trust the Trades and Labour Council and others will ventilate this matter, and use their. influence to put a stop to the jobbery now going on. If the other parts of the colony are in the same condition as Auckland, it is high time the people united, "and go on the Government lines" of advertising at home for a Royal Chief Commissioner to educate the Ministry in the higher brandies of administration, instead of the pettifogging attitude assumed at present in trying to please everybody, and do the local as well as the general management.—lam, &c., Barnky Marlone.