BARBER'S BUNCE.

NZ Truth, Issue 94, 6 April 1907, Page 4

BARBER'S BUNCE.

WORKING ON A GOOD WICKET

Grafting Girls at 14 Bob a Week.

The man who hangs out his sign as a cleaner and dyer of old garments is not looked upon as a rule as a man of money, he mostly has to struggle pretty hard for a crust, and toil at the dye-pan and handle the goose himself. All are not built this way, however, and as a bright and shining example of how a man may become wealthy as a faded garment renovator our worthy Member for Newtown, Mr Barber, of Barber and Co., of 4G Cuba-street may be cited. Barber is a great man, he hustles round the town m a motor car, he is interested m many financial concerns, and is a Member of Parliament, and a Liberal Member at that. His dyeinf and cleaning establishment is a very big concern, and no doubt Mr Barber, Liberal Member for Newtown, derives many shekels therefrom. People of quite good class take their old duds to be pressed up by a Member of Parliament! and pay up their half-quidlets, or whatever the cost may be. They never pause to question who really does the mending and cleaning and pressing. Perhaps they think it is so simple that Mr Barber does it all what time he is not motoring or speech-making somewhere, or

ATTENDING BANQUETS. But let it here be said that it isn't Mr Barber at all, but for the most part a crqwd of sweated girls who are grafting their innards out for 14s a week. And they haven't a palace to work m either. Last Saturday and Monday, when the rain storm came along, the water trickled through the roof m delightful little streams, and the girls' blouses suffered accordingly. Fancy working m a small room with a hot iron— not the ordinary flat-iron, but a tailor's '•goose"— and the water pouring m upon you from the ceiling. Barber ought to patent the idea, call it "Barber's Patent Cooler."

Possibly if Barber were not an M.H.R. he might be called upon to rectify his leaky roof, but great are the powers that be, and Barber is allowed to sweat his 14s a week slaves under any conditions he pleases. It seems as if a Dyers and Cleaners Employees' Union is very urgently wanted. They are only a small body certainly, hut why should they be deprived of the privileges •their fellow workers, the tailoresses, are entitled to, even if they do work for a Member of Parliament, and a member of the party that prides itself upon what it has done for the workers. It is the good old story again, Labor laws are good for the other fellow, but must never be i brought home.