THE OLD STONEBREAKERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9166, 22 September 1888, Page 6

THE OLD STONEBREAKERS.

It is understood that the City Council will be asked to reconsider their recent decision to dismiss the Mount Eden stonebreakers. In case they decide to do so the results of the following figures may not be without use in assisting them to arrive at a wise and just, as well as economical conclusion : —

1. The city streets require annually, say 9000 yards of oroken -Done, costing at present price 3s 9d per yard, £1687 10s. 2. If the old stonebreakers be dismissed, and, as a reason for their discharge, it was stated at a late Council meeting that road metal could be purchased at 3s per yard, thus effecting an annual saving of £337 It's (the saving of £450 being based on 4s per yard, the price paid up to the end of July last). 3. After the discharge of the old stonebieakers, three sources for obtaining broken stone will be available to the Council.

First, the Charitable Aid Board, which is understood to pay 3s per yard for its broken metal, besides finding tools, is a body supported by Government aid and contributions from rates, and amongst its other duties, provides work for the casually unemployed. Seeing the strong protests made in most English-speaking communities, against the products of prison labour or other Government institutions of similar character competing with free individual labour, the Council, I venture to hope, will not expose their old stonebreakers to this class of competition. Should they do so, they would quickly find that the demand for broken metal by the municipalities and Road Boards within reach of Mount Eden would soon exhaust the stone-breaking powers of the Charitable Aid Board, more especially, as immediately the demand for general workmen increases, the Board will not get much metal broken at 3s per yard. For these considerations it is evident the City Council must look to other agencies than the Charitable Aid Board for its supply of road metal. Second. The system of calling for tenders for general works by Public Bodies is a sound one, bub it does not appear to me to be available in this instance, for the following reasons :—

These old stonebreakers could not tender against the large tenderers certain to come into the field. They would certainly drift into a condition of practical serfdom, being unable to go anywhere else, or do anything else, they would, in effect, become no better than the bond slaves of the successful tenderer, the common workingman's remedy of striking being closed to these industrious old men, who must crack stones or die, or eat the bitter bread of pauperism. Under such conditions the successful tenderer for the year might make the Council pay possibly a much higher price for its road metal than now, and, in any case, would have the power to "sweat" the helpless old men to death.

I will not insult the Council by supposing it possible that they could adopt a system so cruel and degrading. Thsre now remains the third mode of obt lining the supply of broken metal the Council requires, namely, by using machine broken stone. Every road engineer and overseer with whom I have spoken declares that two yards of hand-broken metal are equal to three yards of machine metal, because of the " flaky " character of the latter, and because the machine crushes and destroys the grain of the stone, rendering it much more friable than hand-broken stone.

Now, let us see how this condition of things works out as to relative cost, and the resulting gain or loss between the two classes, of road metal.

The Council can buy machine stone at 3s, possibly at '2s 9d per yard. For each two yards of hand broken, three yards of machine broken, with extra cart ing and spreading of the latter, costing when on the streets as under :— Hand Metal. Machine Metal. Breaking 2 yards s. d. Breaking 3 yards s. d. at 3a 9d .. ..76 at 2s 9d .. ..83 Carting and spread- Carting and spreading ditto.. ..40 ing ditto .. 60 Total .. .. 11 6 Total .. .. 14 S Or, costing par Or, costing per yard .. .. 5 9 yard .. .. 7 11 (3 yards being equal to 2). The saving of hand metal over machine metal being Is per yard, or a total yearly saving to the ratepayers on the 9000 yards required of £618 15s. Or, put it this way, 13,500 yards machine metal, carted and spread, at 4s 9d, cost £3,206 5 0 0,000 yards hand metal, carted and spread, at 5s 9d, cost 2,587 10 0 Showing a yearly loss by using machine metal of £618 15 0 Instead of the alleged yearly saving of 450 0 0 besides relieving street passengers, shopkeepers, and householders from about 4500 extra yards of stone being ground into dust, and blown about or washed into the harbour per annum. Should the Council adopt machine metal, they will not only make annually this loss of £618 los, but having deprived the old stonebreakers of the means of earning their own living, they must support them as paupers at a yearly cost of not less than £1500, for which a poor rate will have to be levied.

With such contingencies before them, will the Council deprive these helpless old men of the right to labour, nob as paupers, but as men willing to work and asking for no money but what they honestly earn ? Will they degrade man who by serving, many of them, an apprenticeship of 15 years or more at stonebreaking, can now do that and nothing else, and who, during that long period, riave never insulted a child on its way to school, have never dons a shilling's worth of injury to their neighbours' property, have never cost the country a sixpence for special police supervision? I have now put the hard case of these pooi stonebreakevs fully before the Council. I can do no more. It only remains for me respectfully to ask the Council to reconsider their decision, and to employ these well-nigh worn-out old men, not at 3s 3d or 3s tid per yard, but at 3s 9d, the price they are now paying. J. C. FISTU. Seutembf"- n, .ISSS.