EMPLOYMENT OF BOYS IN MINES

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22506, 14 September 1938, Page 7

EMPLOYMENT OF BOYS IN MINES

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir, —Would you allow me space to ermress my disgust regarding an accident which happened to a boy of 14 who was killed in the Kaitangata coal mine, crushed between two trucks. I wonder how some of the mothers felt when they read that sad news. Probably they asked the same question as I did. Why eyer was a child of that age allowed to work in a coalmine? Some of our Ministers are pretty good at talking about child labour in factories, where they do not commence until they are 16 —two years older than that poor boy. I hope this meets the eye of the Minister for Mines and that he will try to answer that one.— Yours, etc., DISGUSTED. September 13, 1938.

TO THE EDITOR O T THB PRESS. Sir, —It seems strange to me that there has not been an outcry from one end of the Dominion to the other over the fact that a 14-year-old boy has recently been fatally injured while working in a coal mine in this country. It is a long distance back to the days of Charles Dickens, but methinks that we have progressed very little from those days if the reported age of the boy is correct. Fourteen is too young for any boy to start work, but for manual labour in a coal mine it is brutal. I would respectfully suggest through your columns to the Minister

for Mines that -he have a searching inquiry made to find out just how many boys under the age of 18 years are employed in the coal mines of this country.—Yours, etc., W.K. Ashburton, September 13, 1938.