THE COUNTY COUNCIL AND CONTRACTORS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 4925, 15 January 1902, Page 2

THE COUNTY COUNCIL AND CONTRACTORS.

At last Friday*, meeting of the Taapeka County Comity Council a motion was carried that in fatore 25 per cent of all contractors' money be detained until after the completion of the work. The authority for this step is given to the Council under "The Contncton' and Workmen's Lien Aofc, , 1892 n Section 12 of the Act, which' clefinei the law on the question, says : «An emplojer,or contractor shall retain in his hands one-fourth part of the money payable under the contract to the contractor or aub-contractor until the expiration of 31 days after the completion of the work." Section 13 says :— "Every contractor who sublet* any part of the work to be done by him under any contract shall immediately upon entering into any Bub-contract give written notice to the employer, stating the name of the subcontractor, the work to be done by him, the amount of the sub-contract, and the mode of payment. If any contractor shall fail to comply with tbfa provision he shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding £50, to be recovered in a summary way under ' The Jnstipes of the Peace. Act, 1892.' " The law, it will be teen, is very dear on the lubject and

very rigorouw in ita application and leavea no doubt whatever aa ;to the right of ihe Connty Council to pas? inch a resolution- and its authority to give effect to It. It may be taken for granted at the game time tbat those who come under its operation, such as contractors and sub-contractors, will not regard it with oomplaoenoy and will, in ftct, be inclined to regard it as a very serious hardship, if not an entirely un-called-for and unnecessary law. In reality, however, it is the recoil of the j boomerang, the operation of a reaotioaary principle which people freely advocate in its application to others but strongly object to when it touches themselves. And yet tbe principle of the law is founded on a spirit of justice and a laudable desire to protect those whose labor enables the contractor or sub-oontractor not only to carry out the work he has undertaken but to make a profit on it It is intended to impose an effective check on a contractor who may be dishonest enough to defraud ' his men of their wages ; or who may, by taking a contract at too low' a price, find himself on its completion with no money in hand to pay the arrears of his men. Consequently we find that the law makes absolute provision to protect the workmen whatever may eventuate.- It embodies in its entirety tbe .principle of the Labor legislation which occupies such a large space of the statute law of the last eight or nine years. And as thiß was almost in its entirety devised with the object of protecting those who lived by their labor it should not be a matter of surprise in tbis instance to see such authority delegated and not only delegated bnt imposed on local bodies in common with all other employers. No doubt contractors and sub-con-tractors may say, " but we are not capitalists ; we are not employers in any large sense of the term ; we are for the most part poor men, aa poor and poorer frequently than those we employ." .Possibly so, but the law dbesjnot discriminate,nor could it possibly do so. The same law must apply to all classes of employers or to all classes oE workmen. And it may possibly be alt, the more necessary, with the view of protecting the workman! that, because a contractor is needy, the law should apply all the wore stringently in his case. At all events the law is plain, aud equally so it the duty, in this instance, of the County Council. There are aleo other provisions in the Act all tending in the direction of protecting the employes of contractors or sub-con^-tractors, in such cases, for instance, a« when a claim of lien or charge has been lodged, in which case it imposes on the employer or superior contractor the obligation of retaining in his bands until the time prescribed by the Act for taking proceedings for enforcing the lien or charge has expired, a sufficient part of the money payable by lien ucder his contract to satisfy the demand of the claimant. In short every possible precaution is taken to protect the workman and compel on the part of contractors and sub-con-tractors the payment of the claims of labor.