ARTHURS PASS TUNNEL. (From Our Own Co-respondent.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2840, 19 August 1908, Page 40

ARTHURS PASS TUNNEL. (From Our Own Co-respondent.)

CHRISTCHURCH, August 11

Strikes and rumours of strikes among the men employed" on the Arthur's Pass tunnel workings at Otira and Bealey have occupied a considerable amount of public attention during the past few months, and a Press reporter was accordingly despatched to Otira to ascertain the real position of affairs. He reports that the causes of dissatisfaction according to the workers are :■ (1) The unsatisfactory hut accommodation, (2) insufficiency of wages, (3) the tyrannical conduct of certain officials, (4) the " insecurity of tenure of an employee in his position owing to the prevalence of wholesale " sacking," (5) bad ventilation of the tunnel.

The first was due to the huts having to be constructed of wet timber, which shrank in drying, and allowed altogether too much ventilation. The contractors have, however, put on a carpenter to remedy the defect. The alleged insufficiency of wages is not emphasised by the men to any degree, very few being dissatisfied on that score. The fifth cause of complaint, the ventilation of the tunnel, is to be taken in hand at once.

There remain, then, two points of dis satisfaction — the conduct of some of the officials, and the insecurity of tenure, and on these the Press investigator remarks that, .with regard to some of the officials, the non-commissioned men, co to 6peak, there is the bitterest feeling. In fact, there is an" unsafe" feeling. Instances of reprisals are not unknown at either Otira or the Beale-y. An unpopular " boss" was recently beaten within an inch of his life at Otira by two men. At the Bealey a "boss" who had made himself obnoxious wae. hounded out of his hut in the early hours of the morning by infuriated underlings, and pursued until he tools refuge in the bush. Threats are made to " wait for" the " niggerdrivers," and there are already records of sanguinary fights, in which the contestant's abandoned their natural means of defence and offence and kicked, scratched, and even bit on© another until pulled apart- by their mates. For some considerable time there was great friction with the shift bosses, bub at present relations 6eern to be fairly amicable. *=■