THE WORKING MAN'S PARADISE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1347, 26 January 1912, Page 5

THE WORKING MAN'S PARADISE.

SALUTE THE DONKEYMANI

It is pretty certain that the great mass of the public— the public which has to pay—has a very little idea of what tho big increases given to waterside workers, seamen, and others mean to them. An authority who has a good deal to do with tho wharf and tho vessols that lie up there, gives a faiut idea of tho Giiberthin tragedy which lurks grimly behind all. Tor obvious reasons it would not b» judicious to publish his name. "Do people realiso what is happening," said he, "1 wonder! Do you know that one Union Company's steamer running into Wellington last month the donkeyli'tin drew the third highest pay on the ship—higher than the chief mate and t-econd engineer. Hd drew over JUS for the month, and, of course, got his board and lodging thrown in. That's very decent pay for n doukeyman, eh? He had to work long hours, but not longer than tome of the officers, who havo to be about so long as the donkey is working. AVith the latest increase he will, with a reasonable amount of overtime, draw pretty nearly ,£2O a month. With board and lodging, that means the equivalent of £6 a week.

, "}iow, I'll tell yon something that the papers havo not had—it is this, that the representatives of the biggest New Zealand shipping companies wanted to hold out against the Seamen's Union's demands, but those representing the Home steamer lines would not hear of it, because their companies had had such a bad tinio over the recent striko in England. ; 1 understand that the local companies' representatives wcro inclined to favour ,;tho idea of fighting the ,mcn, and so producing a strike' before this Federation of Labour became more powerful than it is at present. Mr. Scinplo is always talking peace, peace, peace, and'it will bo peace so long as he gets everything for those ho represents, but I doubt if there would be peace if his extortions were resisted. It is a pity they were not—long ago. Some people cannot see beyond tleir noses, or they would havo fought Icng ago. Now it looks as if it would go on and on until the general public, whose .wages are not going up and up. revolt. "The working man talks glibly about the iniquity nf the increased cost of living, while ho is piling it up himself, not alone by the increased wages he is getting, but by the little bit extra he Jorccs everyone to put on (over and above the amount that would provide for the increase) for the risk he is running in trading under such unsettled conditions.

"Anyone who knows the wharf, knows that except on the rarest occasions— perhaps half, a dozen days in the busy season of the year —there are hundreds of men hanging round over and above any normal demand, looking for a job or not looking for a job, at the caso may be. Some of them go down, I believe, merely to avoid arrest for- having no visible means of support, and really do not want any work, beyond the exertion of 'two-np' or draughts. The increased pay for waterside workers is not going to decrease the army, and is going to. keep hanging round the waterside, men who would lie better employed in developing tho land remote trom the sea-coast."