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very large industry, that this Bill will simply cripple it, and the whole of my efforts are thrown away. lam contemplating making an addition to the works, and where I should increase my hands during the next six months by at least twenty, and the possibility of more within the space of two years—but under the conditions of this Bill I am blocked from increasing—to perhaps two hundred. It would be simply ruin to me. I know I could find room on some of the commonest lines imported into this colony for five hundred hands, and I can prove it by facts and figures. I am speaking on behalf the potteries, but in the other industries—such as the brickmakers and pipemakers—these hours would be perfectly unworkable for them to carry on and for them to keep their men steadily employed. We cannot possibly carry on unless allowed a continuous run of our works. We cannot possibly comply with the Act. There is a larger demand continually creeping in for sanitary repairs, and we have been able to hold our own so far without stopping. When the Wellington sewerage contract was on, it was by a very narrow margin that we got the order here, but put this Bill into force and they can flood us from New South Wales and elsewhere. 217. Mr. Barclay.] Do you pay your men so much a week, or by the hour?— Generally by the week; some are paid by the hour. We have so many classes in our works that it is almost impossible to pay them alike. Ido not believe in piece-work, but this Bill would drive any man to work at piece-work. Our hands are all classed according to their abilities. 218. And your works are going night and day?— Yes. 219. You work them in shifts ? —No, in this way: there are men that are always at their eight hours; a man comes on at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and works until 12 o'clock ; the other man goes on at 12 o'clock and works until 8. You do not give me scope under the Bill for my firemen—seven hours. Another point bears a lot on our work, and. that is this : Our kilns are affected the same as gas repairs. If something happens and one of our kilns breaks down, we have to work at night up to 7 or 8 o'clock to get that kiln in fire. If she is not in fire and taking her place in rotation, where is the kiln behind her? It simply means that some one has to stand off—the fire is our master. We can stock a certain quantity, and if we cannot work overtime to get out that extra quantity we are done; though I do not believe in overtime ; I would sooner pay my men 6d. an hour to get the work done before 5 o'clock; but we must have overtime unless the whole thing is blocked. Sometimes on Saturdays we have to work overtime. I do not object so much to the hours so long as we could have the privilege of working overtime. 220. Mr. Laurenson.] You say you have got to compete against the imported article ?—Yes. 221. The freight and duty makes it cost about 100 per cent, at the very lowest. Is not that enough protection for you to bid against almost anything ? —No; our labour costs us 155 per cent, as against what the manufacturer that makes it at Home pays. The labour is a very small item at Home. 222. That is, you pay 155 per cent, more than in England ? —Yes. 223. What do you pay here?— The lowest paid potterer here gets his 10s. a day, and the highest paid potterer does not make more than 3s. 6d. at Home. It is chiefly done with boy- and girl-labour at Home. And yet we could make every single thing we import if we had the least little protection in regard to the hours of work and labour. 224. Mr. Arnold.] Do you employ anything else but adult male labour ? —Yes, there are boys. 225. You have a number of boys ?—Yes ; there are, to my belief, seventeen boys between the age of fifteen and twenty. 226. And you are quite satisfied with this Act as far as it applies to the boys ?—Yes. Mr. William Chalmeks examined. (No. 29.) In reply to the Chairman's invitation to state his views on the Bill before the Committee, Mr. Chalmers said: I would ask that the coopers should be exempt from the operations of this Act altogether. I may tell you that I have, I believe, one of the finest cooperage plants, if not the finest, in the Australian Colonies, and manufacture the whole of my output in three months, yet it is extended over the twelve months. In the busy season it is impossible to get the coopers in order to cope with the manufacturing. This year for the first time in sixteen years we have not had to work every day ; we could not keep the meat companies going at Ngahauranga last season ; if we had stopped one day we would have blocked the whole of the Ngahauranga works. In the Gear Company's works it would not so much matter with cases. Unless the Ngahauranga works can fill their digesters the whole of their works are stopped. We were running simply neck-and-neck. I applied to the Labour Department to get me good men, and they advertised in the whole of New Zealand, and sent their agent of Auckland round in New Plymouth too, but could not get me the men. In the butter-box making, which is mostly made by lads, there is a great difficulty in getting hands. I advertised in the beginning of last season in New Plymouth for hands, and did not get a solitary reply. I had to get Mr. Young to get me two young lads between seventeen and eighteen years of age down from Palmerston North. They work at piece-work, but some boys I have here will not work by piece-work. The boys are paid 6s. 6d. per hundred for finishing right off. They can do from eighty to a hundred and twenty a day, and that is not a bad wage for a boy of that age. The difficulty is that we cannot get these boys to come and make boxes. They do not seem to care a rap whether they work or not. When you get a few good lads you have got to nurse them, and actually make pets of them. The objection that I have to the Bill is in restricting the hours of manual labour. With regard to my men—and there are sometimes about nine men there —the fastest earn as high as 15s. and 16s. a day, and the old men, between sixty and seventy, earn perhaps a couple of guineas a week. At the present time I have only five coopers. The regular men earn up to 12s. 6d. per day, and the old men earn from £1 ss. to £1 15s. per week— they certainly do not earn an average wage ; this is the slack season. In March, the busiest month last year, I employed fifty-one hands, and in March of this year only thirty-three. I have