WORKMEN'S WAGES.

Timaru Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 6067, 28 September 1894, Page 4

WORKMEN' S WAGES.

«. Sir W Wasteueye, a Napier solicitor, writes to the Evening News : — <! I have got into such hot water amongst the dominant class over the communication addressed to your valuable paper by me last week — [Thia wae assertiog that the sheepowners of Hawke's Bay had sent out a circular requesting their class to employ only Maoris for shearing this season, as a reprisal against the Labour legislation] — that on tbe prinoipla that one may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, I will ask you to permit use to air m your columns a grievance whioh has long been exeroising my mind. Amongst the possibly too numerous Bills brought m this session, I have looked m vain for one dealing with a very praotioal wrong, and one which is necessarily of common occurrence m Hawke's

Bay, and if familiar to every lawyer whose client? do not exclusively oon*i»t of the higher olaßies. I bIIu Je fco the numerous instances m which workmen and employees, domestic or other wise, when leaving their employment or sifcu tint 8, are uasble to get their wages owi- g to the expenses necessarily inourred by them m service of process and the loss of time pending the reoovery, for which lose of time and incidental ooßt of living (exoept m the csse of dishonoured orders) they oan get no reoompense whatever. Assuming a workman gives notioe and leaveß or is discharged from a station fifty miles away from the Magistrate's Court, the employer, oocseiocally out of dishonesty, bat frequently out of pique, refuses to pay htm, and the man han?s about for week*, staying at a neighbouring hofcil waiting for his money. In such a case it frequently happens that if he eventually gats what is due to him it is already oonsumed m hotel bills for his board m the interval. Or if he tramps down, or induoes come friendly carrier or coach driver to give him a lift to town, and goes to the olerk of the Magistrate's Court to issue a summons, lie finds that be is wholly unable to pay the 50s mileage, and after remaining idle for weeks endeavouring to borrow the money he is either run m by the police or is only too glad to take other employment far away from town, and let his claim against his former employer rip. In other words, money owing for wages is treated m every respect as an ordinary debt, and nothing beyond the cum actually due up to the time of the expiration of the employment, or of the required notice (if any) U recoverable. ISow, I submit, that this is an injustice to the employee which ought to be remedied, and that the workman, if be be not paid on the nail, should be able to recover, m addition to the amount due to him up to the termination of his service, compensation for the locs of time, and for his keep m the intern! between his disoharge and his having the opportunity of recovering his wages m a Court of competent jurisdiction. I would also, with all due submission, suggest that the enactment might appropriately take the form o! an amendment to the Truck Act, 1891, and be somewhat on the following lines :— All wages and arrears of wages dne to every workman, whose employment has terminated, shall be paid on the day on which he leaves the servioe of his employer, and m the event of euob wages and arrears not being paid m full on tbat day, there shall beoome payable to the workman, and be shall be entitled to recover m action at law, m addition to the wages or balance of wages due to him, a earn equal to the wages he would have beoome entitled to had he continued m the service of his employer up to the day of the sitting of the Magistrate's Court whioh shall ba held next after his leaving his employment, and at which the magistrate, before whom the action is heard, shall decide it was reasonably possible for him to have his action for suoh wages beard. And m the event of the employers being contented to supply board and lodging m addition to the original soale of wages agreed upou as part of the workman's remuneration, such workmau ehal! be entitled to recover the sum of 3s per diem for his support during the interval between his discharge and his being able to prooure the hearing of his aotion as aforesaid. And every aotiou brought ostensibly for the reoovery of wages shall be deemed to be ' a meritorious cause of action ' within aeotion 172 of the Magistrate's Court Act, 1893. Undor the section last referred to, a plaintiff who oan satisfy a Stipendiary Magistrate by affidavit, that he has a meritorious cause of aotion, and ia without means, oan get the summons issued and served without payment of fees m advance. The .knowledge of this provision may be, even now, of praotical value to discharged labourers to whom money is duo.