A STEP BACKWARDS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15971, 13 November 1919, Page 6

A STEP BACKWARDS.

To the Editor. Sir,.—“2s 3d per hour, and 9)- hours per day.” ’Thus an advt. calling for bricklayers by a local firm of contractors in a recent issue of the “Herald.” Surely, Mr Edtior, this bait of a longer day is a retrograde movement, and one which is very likely to succeed with the artisan and unionist of to-day, the majority of whom have too short a tally of years to be able to remember and are altogether too indifferent to desire to know of the great fight put up by the men of the early eighties in this and other colonies for the reduction of the hours of labour and the recognition of an eight-hour working day. From an extended experience in building operations I believe that overtime is of no permanent benefit to either proprietor, contractor, or workman, and most certainly is not conducive to good work. After a time men begin to fag and get leg-weary with the monotony of it. with the result that, although the time is

put in, men suffer in health and the employer in pocket. I am convinced that more and better work can be done in twelve months with ordinary hours .than with overtime. The short period ■usually allowed for the erection of such buildings as wool stores, freezing works, creameries, and butter factories is a great factor in the call for overtime, as well as in the enhanced first cost to the proprietor of hurried work, with all the extra cost of maintenance which usually follows such methods, and incidentally the manufacture of so-called artisans who are not, and never will be, competent mechanics. Admitted that the cost of living is out of all proportion to what it ought to be, the remedy is not longer hours, hut a reduction of the cost of living, or, failing that, a raising of the rate. At the game time, if wages are raised by the Arbitration Court, it is not equitable that the extra cost should fall on he contractor, but should be borne by the people of New Zealand as a whole.—l am, etc., JOHN C. BEODIE.