A Few Remarks

Maoriland Worker, Volume I, Issue 7, 20 March 1911, Page 18

A Few Remarks

(By BiiiLY Banjo.) Life in a mining village ! Let those who are unacquainted with theminer's life just read this brief sketch as they sit by the glowing fixe> whiohi the miner has won for them. I spent childlbqod and early manhood with the pick and shovel —born and bred a miner. I have seen massive pit-frame works, chimney stacks,, and all tlbat goes to create the harsh sounds of the mdne 3 take away the daisy bedecked play-fields of my childhood. Little did we think in those happy dream-days that a hive of industry would awaken to surging life around our innocent scenes. That thoright hasi a. deep pathos for mc. * * * Childhood! Children in the mining village are hardy ; uncouth, sturdy blades*. 'They can play and enjoy lifewithout restriction: —no governess or guardians such as the "better class" - have, conducting every hour of childlife They play with the free abandon of the wind, for the children's God is a God of Feeedom. Schooldayscome and go. They begin to take life seriously—<and what an earnestness comes into the very nature of the miner-cJhdldi! Generally (they imbibe tho idea that they will grow up to be worthy men and women. They have lead of other heroes and heroines they see a World to conquer ; a Life to live; and not a few decide upon a Purpose of Original Worth. I know,, and every miner knows, how true this is. Tlhen just as the plans are maturing, paths being decided upon, the call of need, dire need, comes front the home, and employment is found, for tho boys , in the mine while the girls go to work in the factory or troop oif to the city. =5* * '* * So life begins in earnest. Its glamour and mysteries vanish and only its sordidness remains. So the village youth is scattered, perhaps never to meet again around the scenes of their infancy. * * * * The mine sends up its , tons of coal, or gold-orei, or lead-ore, tin-ore, etc., for the many uses, for industry, and the factory wheels keep turning. Rich and fancy materials for the homes beautiful are produced. Ay, but these have taken all the rich colour out of the cheeks, ay, out of the lives of the poor girls. Girl life gets lost, and woven into the articles produced in th-i mills of greed. Ttoe boy-life gradually loses its cherished aim, its meaning of worth, and few, few There are who reach the Grand Purpose that seemed to lie ahead. * * # Down in the mine, "where every hour sweats its sixty minutes," the miner toils. Choked with dust, the pores of his over-strained body clogged with dirt, he returns home. When will the Government compel the provision of baths ? If the Government has the welfare of the race at heart, if it sets a. value upon manly, honest lives, it will hasten to supply baths for the miner. Ido not mean a bath which twenty or thirty miners may use promiscuously, but a bath for each home, ■x- *■ ■* One often hears that there is no poverty in sunny New Zealand. Recently before a. sitting of the Arbitration Court a miner appeared with grocery bills to prove that in spite of good, clean, honest living he was drifting into debt! He did not drink. He never wilfully lost a day's work, yet he was in debt! The company opposing the miners was awarded everything asked! And some people profess surprise at Miners' Unions cancelling their registration under the Arbitration Act. * •* * What do the miners want ? We wish to have the ideals of youth restored. We are willing to work to live —not live to work. We demand that poverty be removed. We want to know some of the joy and purpose of life; our homes bright and cheerful, filled with healthy wives and happy children, strangers to the fear of unemployment, the dread of want, that works havoc in the strongest of us. *• ■* * The other day I sought to engage a dwelling-house. It was in Huntly, a rising mining village in the North. My prospective landlord was a local preacher, and I felt I was approacning a, reasonable fellow to deal with. He asked £1 a week. I remonstrated. He worked out figures to show what the wear of the coming years would mean in depreciation upon the property. 1 worked out figures to show that sections bought three years ago for £30 to-day sold at £90! The Government valuator recently set a sum of less than £.250 upon this very property, yet he asked a. yearly rental of £52! Thus those who are building up a community are finding conditions enforced upon them that make living impossible in. that same community. What a cruel paradox!