Boy Labour in Mines.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8418, 10 December 1894, Page 4

Boy Labour in Mines.

A North of Bngland 'correspondent tells ns chat the taunts rogarding the hardship of boy labour in the northern mines, addreised to the labour in the northern mines, 'addressed to the leaders of Northumberland and Durham miners during the debates on the Mines Eight Hours Bill, have gone home and are bearing fruit. The movement for reform is being quiokenod. Having obtained a restriction of their own working day to even less than eight hours, they feel the indefensible oharacter of an arrangement under whioh tbe boys and lads engaged along with them work ten hours per day and longer. It may be eaid here that among the Northumberland and Durham miners are to be fouDd fathers or grandfathers who can reoall the time when a boy vras sent down the as a " trapper " or door-keeper at the age of six, and kept on duty ia darkness and solitude for 18 hours — a oervioe for wbioh he received sd. Happily, the present lot of the boy^ miner, though in need of ameliorniion, is not so bid as that. He hat no longer only one ohance in the week of seeing the light of day.