Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1871.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1170, 13 November 1871, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus j urare in verba magistri. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1871.

We are indebted to the Wanganui Chronicle for directing public attention to a clause in the draft contract No. 2 between the Government of the Colony and Messrs. Brogden, which stipulates that the contractors shall be perajuV-ed to introduce the " truck system " into the Colony by establishing "stores" along the several lines of works they rnay have in construction. There are jew of us who have not known something of the evils attendant on this sysspnj in the ojd country, and, we may say, it) still exists, notwithstanding the attempts qf the linperial legislature tq suppress it. When employers have the qwnership of, or an interest in, such stores, the employees are in ef|gqt bovind to deal at theim, and wages

are paid in. part at least in goods. It needs no great power of perception to See the abuses that must flow from such a scheme. The workmen are practically forced to take such goods as are offered them at those stores, and pay such prices as are asked for them without reference either to market value or quality. All this is bad enough, but if it be true, as intimated by the Chronicle, that these stores are to be also liquor shops, the case assumes a very much worse aspect, and we believe that the fact only requires to be pointed out to the Government to ensure its repudiation. We trust that this attempt on the part of the contractors to combine liquor selling with railway constructing will have the opposite effect to that de sited by them, and lead to the actual prohibition of any such establishments on any line of public works either by the contractors or others. It would indeed be a most desirable experiment to try whether public worjcs cannot be carried on without the drunkenness and disorder usually attendant on them, and which are mainly owing to the temptations placed in the way of the laborers by the too easily accessible drink shops.