The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1907.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1969, 3 January 1907, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1907.

According to a report in the Christchurch Press, r. J. T. M Hornsby, M.H.R. for Wairarapa, and editor of the Railway Review, I telivered an address to the members , of the Canterbury branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway | Servants. Messrs. H. G. Ell and G. Witty, M.H.R.’s, were present, a There was an attendance of about 200 railway employees. In the coursi of his address Mr. Hornsby said : “There were some largo questions that wanted settling between the executive and the management, and some tantalising and very often brutalising tendencies in the rorvico. which should cease. The executive was the body' which should attend ic these matters. It should go ' to the General Manager, and, if it could not get satisfaction from him, ii should go to the Minister and ask him to remedy the abuses. It was no use bringing cases before the Appeal Board, because the board and the Minister set themselves above the £ law of the colony. It would be better, | he said, to bring their grievances bets) fore members of Parliament, and then, perhaps, some legislation would be passed that would enable them to get justice.” Mr, Hornsby outlined in detail a scheme of re-organisation A resolution, wo are told ,was uanimonsly agreed to affirming the necessity for re-organisation of the society. A committee was appointed to draft a scheme of re-organisation for submission to the various branches. It will be news to most people outside the Railway Department that there are any grievances to be redressed, although most people are aware that railway servants are compelled to work inordinately long hours, and cannot avail themselves of the weekly halr-lioliday which a Liberal Government insists upon ell other employers granting to their empiovees. It is not, however, in the hours of work or the absence of a half-holiday that the railway men have most to complain of, but in the advancement of politically favored ones a hove the heads of better men , who have been longer in the service, and such other things as would not. ( be permitted in a well-regulated pri- I vate establishment. The men oov- ‘ tainly have grievances which would ! not exist under a non-political board I c of control, but at the same time weir do not approve of the suggestion of v the member for Wairarapa that t politics should - be brought more f closely in touch with the working of a the Department by direct appeals to 1-1 members of the House of Represen- a tatives in order to get those griev- j, auces redressed. Whether he means u ,

it or not, Mr, Hornsby brings a very serious charge against the head of the Government, of which he is himself a very servile follower; for, if "A Ir. Hornsby’s words amount to anything at all, they mean that the Premier,, as head of a Government that is always professing to befriend the worker, and practically asking that the workers of the colony should put their whole trust in him, as head of the Railway Department is showing his utter unfriendliness to the workers under his direct control, and thus shows his incompetence, to deal with labour questions, and his unwillingness to do what the interests of Labor demands of him. “ft is no use,” says Mr. Hornsby, “bringing cases before the Appeal Board because the Board and the Minister set themselves above the law of the colony.” “A pretty kettle of fish” truly, seeing that the Appeal Board is one of those Libera! emanations for which the Liberal Government has claimed for itself so much credit. But tho charge is Mr. Hornsby’s, not ours, and it shows at a glance the real difference between Ministerial professions of the ~ibera l order and Ministerial practices in which the professions aro put to the actual test. Possibly Mr. Hornsby’s suggested remedy of appealing to members of Parliament would he. an effective one on a distinct understanding that railway men were willing to paint themselves of the true political color; but unless they do that there is no precedent to support the belief that they would gain much advantage by such appeals. On the contrary, if they declined to declare to which political fold they belonged, there is every reason to believe that their grievances would multiply and enlarge. The suggestion of this great statesman, then, is that tho question should not ho ono of right, nr whether or not tho men have a just grievance—one embracing tho essential elements of justice of the men's demands, but one of political expediency in which the men are to be invited to make their demands sub ordinate to a political compromise in which tho measure of justice they are to receive will bear exact proportion to their voting stiongtli. They aro, in fact, invited to practically abandon any claims they may have on the grounds »f contemn justice wherein the measure of their compensation would be the honest work of their hands rendered to the State, and to substitute for that the amount ol political power they could muster up and sell to the Government for what might ho gianted by way of concussions. At the last elections it was sought to purchase their support by an increased grant of one shilling per day, and it succeeded in some instances; but there were other sturdy employees in the llailway Department who rightly argued that they had already earned the increase, and had given a quid pro quo for it i'l honest labor, and were therefore undor no obligation to consider themselves bound to throw their votes ir, as part of the bargain. We liopo to see the majority take the same stand on this occasion, and decilne to se„ their political independence to any party on the assumption that the fruits of their labor cannot bo fitly compensated without throwing in their political support as a sop to any Government for granting them justice. The suggestion is an insult to the intelligence and independence of t)ie men, and a direct accusation that their labor is not sufficient ' o balance their demands without the added inducement of the'r political support. A bargain made on those terms is neither just to the country nor to tho men themselves, whose grievances should he redressed upon their own intrinsic merits.