The Globe. THURSDAY, MAY 2, 1878.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1285, 2 May 1878, Page 2

The Globe. THURSDAY, MAY 2, 1878.

The Star, in its issue of last night, has attempted to controvert the facts wo have stated with regard to the payment of overtime to the railway employees in Christchurch. Wo say attempted, because weak and unsupported as its arguniouts were before, they are, if possible, still more so in the article in question. It is amusing to notice with what cool audacity our contemporary shuts his eyes to Ins own position, as having boon convicted ou the clearest possible evidence of gross misrepresentation. Our contemporary says that our article of the 16th contains unfounded charges. Wo republish the priucipal part of the article in

question, so that the public may judge whether every word of what wo then said has not been borne out by facts. Writing on April 16th we said: —“Our readers will remember that when the Hon. Mr. Larnach was on a tour through the southern part of the colony he was interviewed at Oamani with reference to the grievance of the railway employees as to their having to work overtime without any remuneration. The hardship of this was pointed out to the Hon. Mr. Larnach, and he promised that the matter should hare immediate attention. Indeed, ho went so far as to say that ho could hold out every hope that the reasonable request of the railway employees should bo acceded to. For some time nothing more was heard of the matter. Recently, however, paragraphs have appeared in the Southern papers to the effect that the railway employees were receiving payment for their overtime. Now the railways are under one management throughout the colony, and a regulation of this kind prevailing in one part, as to overtime being paid for, should apply equally to all the employees on the railway. Now the fact remains that on the Canterbury section no overtime is paid for, although the men are working over-hours. Therefore, one of two things is a certainty: either a distinction is made between the employees on the Otago lines and those on the Canterbury ones, or no payment whatever is made for overtime on the railways at all. In either case the Government, the head of which has been so eloquent on the wrongs of working men, has committed an injustice towards them. So far as the Canterbury employees are concerned, though worldng overtime, no payment as a matter of fact is made for it. Such is the way in which the Government redeem promises made.” That the promise was made by Mr. Larnach, as stated, is a matter of record. That the Oamaru employees struck work on the stoppage of the payment of overtime was a fact announced in the Oamaru papers which has never been contradicted. That no overtime has boon paid to the Christchurch men is also a fact, and this, despite the Star, is the whole and sole point of our position. We asserted that the Christchurch men had not been paid for their overtime, though compelled to work beyond the ordinary hours, and wo then went on to point out that if the Southern papers wore correct, and overtime was paid to the Oamaru men, then an injustice was done to those in Canterbury. If, on the other hand, no payment whatever was made for overtime, the promise distinctly made by Mr Larnach on the part of the Government had been broken. Where then are “ the unfounded charges ” we are accused of having made ? The point of the article of the 16th, which is stigmatised as “untruthful,” was that the men at Christchurch received no payment for overtime. That is the point which the Star, for obvious reasons, desires to evade. The Star says, “ The question of payment has nothing to do with the position of our contemporary, We never said the employees had boon paid.” The first sentence is so utterly absurd as hardly to require comment at all. From the very first the question of payment for overtime has been the one we have discussed in our articles. It is perfectly true that the Star has never said straight out that the employees had been paid. Ho knew quite well that they had not, and knowing this the course ho has persistently pursued of leading the public to believe, that such payment had been made was, to say the least of it, the reverse of honest. As wo have said, the Star did not assert in so many words that payment had been made for overtime, but our contemporary triumphantly points to a telegram from Sir George Grey as a direct answer to our statement that no overtime had been paid, thereby leading the public to believe that, from and after the date of the order, the men had received their overtime. Now, as to this order, in which the Star places such implicit faith, wo stated that the employees were not aware of its existence until the telegram of Sir George Grey was published—a fortnight after its date. We are prepared to go still further. From subsequent information it appears that, not only did the working employees not know of the existence of the order, but that up to yesterday—that is May 1st —the heads of departments wore not informed of the existence of such an order. It will thus bo seen that, though tho order is said by the Premier to have been issued on April 13th, it is not until May Ist that the heads of departments, whose duty it would bo to see it carried out, were informed of its existence. Our contemporary tbo Lyttelton Times this morning, true to the same tactics which animate tho Star, has a paragraph in wliich it is said that “ tho vouchers for the overtime money duo to the railway employees have been signed.” Now this is simply untrue. No such vouchers have been signed. Tho facts of the case are that instructions have been issued to heads of departments that overtime will bo paid for in future. On the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread, the railway employees should be duly grateful for this. There is, however, just one point to which we desire to direct attention: the order that payment is to bo made in future for overtime makes its appearance on tho Ist of May —just at the time when tho greater portion of the grain traffic has been got over, and therefore when overtime is not likely to bo so prevalent as it has been during tho past few months.