Truth HARD TIMES.

NZ Truth, Issue 59, 4 August 1906, Page 4

Truth

HARD TIMES.

Published every ; Saturday Morn^ ing at Luke's Lane (off Mannersstreet), WELLINGTON, N.Z. | SUBSCRIPTION (IN ADVANCE), 13S. ! PER ANNUM. :

SATURDAY, AUGUST i, 1906,

In this "Paradise q£ . the working man" it seems almost unbelieveable that such accute distress could possibly exist as does indubitably exist right here m Wellington at the present time and which is also reported to be almost as dire m other cities and towns of New Zealand. 1 ' The bitter^ rainy weather is one of the causes of want and suffering m Wellington, and to it is added the cruel, grinding rack-rent under which the poor bend and stagger. Even those of ..1 • >vtir»t&rs v.iio arc tc^uiarly. em-

ployed at what would be called fair wages, m a city less landlord ridden, find life a severe pinch and have to sec the little ones go with half-shod feet and half-filled bellies to school ; or having to leave school just when beginning to appreciate the value of schooling, and go out into the world to try and earn the price of their own bed and board. • c • ■ But, for the only casually employed, the conditions of life this winter are infinitely worse and no Wellingtonian need boastfully compare the lot of the worker here and almostanywhere else m a "white man'sr country." unfavorably to anywhere; else.' The lot of the casual laborer and those dependent on him is quit? as hard as even that of the London docker ; and then he has two handicaps the London docker does not groan under. These are the shamefully exorbitant rent and the v>ricj£of necessaries. In London a -lockers "home"— such as it is— will cost him from 3s to 5s a week. Here, ,even if a casual laborer shares, a Jiqvel with one or two .mates a:.d their broods, the scant accommodation will cost anything from ,6s tojcjjr a week each. No house fit for^whan habitation can be occupied ty">one family under 12s' to 14s. instance came under the notice of "Truth" only last week, where a house agent let a couple i "well built cottage, Conveniently situated, every modern convenience, including electric light," for Hs a week. When the husband arrived lie found that the place his wife had, "taken for granted," was a squalid threeroomed shanty m a. stable yard, with a good inch of filth caked on the floors, and no outoffices, the tenants requiring to use the w.c. having to pass through the livery stable yard, among a lot of strange men, to a vilely insanitary- place at the back, used "by stablemen and others of like class and which: it was nobody's duty to keep clean?' The electric light was there, right enough— it had just been installed— but the tenant of the "dtssirable cottage" had 'to leave hie back door open, nighty 'to allow the stableman to enter artd switcn on the light m the stables, at 5 a.m. That is a sample of the kind of accommodation workers are expected to pay 14s a week for. Over another —and a very filthily kept— stable, m this city, a erasping ruffian of a landlord is getting 12s a week each for three lofts, for. ttiey are nothing else, and that a plague does not break ou^i among the people sleeping amid such stenches and rat haunts is simply astounding. r • • Such are the rents for the most dreadful tenements ; and when the weather, as haa been the case frequently of late, } prevents casual laborers, such as ;tram-road and other corporation mW, or any of the class whose work lies outdoor, from attending to the work, the poor creatures cannot pay for food for themselves and their loved ones, let. alone such rents. . The consequence is that here, m the capital city of "God's Own Country.',' scores of the homes of the poor are bein": gradually stripped of any semblance to a home, and the second-hand shops and pawnbrokeries are becoming; over-stocked with articles of household furniture, bedding, kitchen utensils and indeed any and everything on which a few shillings can be raised to stall off the harpy landlord. This is not written m any pessimistic mood, nor is it a fancy sketch. It is actual fact, as anyone who chooses to question any. second-hand dealer can prove for himself. There is as much want and misery and hopeless drift to the very kennel, m proportion to population, m Wellington, this winter, as m any' of the cities of the older world,; the wretched condition of which our own newspapers arc so fond ;of picturing. The remedy for the woeful state of the casual laborer and his family lies m the payment of the 'minimum wage per week to all who; stand ready at all times to answer an urgent call for their muscle. No .corporation should expect scores of itried and proved good men to stand idling around m the hope of bejjbg- "'required, and earning nothing thjb while or after the rain has compelled the. ganger to call them of! the job. All these men— such as those ! Who wait on circumstance for a call tip .toil on the tram-roads— are really ejnployees. "They also serve who only, stand and wait." If they went ■iway they . might ,at any moment cause grevious inconvenience; and yet they are expected to stand around earning nothing. Every knock off is at their expense. The system is rotten and the parliamentarian wha.-takes its cure m hand may be assured that he will have popular , approval fand earn the prayers and thanks of 5-a host of half-starved men, women and children, who deserve a better fate I^an the, cruel one they now contend '" against and beneath which they are stoking to despair and perdition.