THE MAIN TRUNK RAILWAY WORKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11841, 19 December 1901, Page 5

THE MAIN TRUNK RAILWAY WORKS.

A gentleman in Auckland recently wrote to a friend who is engaged on the railway works, asking for precise information as to the discharges of men. We give the reply: —" I consider Mr. George Fowlds' letter to Mr. Hall-Jones a good one. As far as I can ascertain, Mr. Fowlds' estimate of 250 is under the mark, rather than over it, most people up here are decidedly of opinion that there have been 300 men dismissed. You must remember that perhaps not a-quarter of the number reached Auckland, J am told there were about 100 put off on the other side of the Wauganui River, most of whom went away in that direction. It was a case of wholesale sacking. We got notice that our job would close down for about three months at Christmas, but I believe such will not be the, case, because there has been such a rumpus about the matter. When the sacking first started, single and married men were put off. Some of the married men cleared when they were paid, and some, 1 suppose, did not know what to do. When the papers took the matter up the married men who stayed behind were put on again. The officials say the married men were only put off for a day or two, because where single and married men were working together in a gang they could not pay the single ones off and leave the married working. It looks feasible, but is a lie on the face of it. I really don't think they studied the married men at all. It was only after the papers took the matter up that they were put on again. Very few of the cuttings between the Onguruhe bridge and Taumaranui, are finished—a distance of about 13 miles. Men were put off whether they were finished or not. It was given out that the whole of the work was to close down. The officials cannot tell us definitely yet how things are. They either can't or won't." Our Wailii correspondent writes: —One of tlio men recently discharged from the North Island Main Trunk railway works tells me that there were no more than 25 men employed on railway formation works and unfinished cuttings when he left nine days ago. and he asserts that there were fully 250 men, if not more, discharged from the unfinished works without any reason being given for their dismissal. It was very hard upon men from this district, who were sent up by the Labour Department some nine or ten weeks ago, to be siunmarilly dismissed five wenks before Christinas, especially when it is considered that similar assistance from the Government has never been asked before by the Ohinenvuri district for the unemployed.

"SACKING HANDS WHOLESALE." [BY TEI.EGKArii.OWN COKBESFONDENT.] Wellington, Wednesday. The Special Commissioner of the North Island Trunk Railway League, who has been on a tour of inspection, states that during tho last 30 or 10 days the overseers on the Taihapo section of the railway works have been busy " sacking hands wholesale." When he arrived at Taihape he found the whole place in a simmor of indignation. It transpired that the whole of the men on the 'Tai-hape-Paengaroa section of the railway works had been discharged from the works at short notice. Some of them had cleared out, others had made whole or partial settlements with their creditors, and leaving their wives and families behind, had gone afar in search of employment, and others were hanging about the hotels spending their little savings, and waiting for something to turn up. The works are stopped, and men have all been "fired out." Only the inspectors and de-puty-inspectors and bad debts remain. This has been a hard knock for tho Taihape storekeepers and tradesmen, who had built up their businesses, and ' provided themselves with stores, on the assumption that the Government would do as any private individual would do, viz., take advantage of the summer months, and persevere steadily with the work which they had taken in hand. Now they will have to face a hen]) of bad debts and overstocked shelves.