AUSTRALIA'S WAGE-SLAVES.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 31, 6 October 1911, Page 6

AUSTRALIA'S WAGE-SLAVES.

Hoav a Coal Carter Lives. Giving. evidence before the Noav South' Wales Coal. . Carters' Wages Board; a .witness explained hoAV he managed to live on his present Avage. He had-been in the coal carting business for 36 years, and Avas iioav paid £2 7s per week. He started Avork at 6" a.m., and usually finished between 6 and 7 p.m. .Sometimes, not.very often, he got aAvay a little before 6 p.m. The' work was hard. : , His first duty in the. morning Avas to clean up his horse, harness lip, and load up. Loose coal had to be into the cart for the first load, and he had to do this. Of late-he had been carting nine loads a day. The loAvest average number of loads for. one day Avas about four or five, but from the boats he had done as-many as "35 loads in a day. Bags of coal, Avhich went 15 to the ton, had to be delivered all over the # cjty and suburbs, and a carter had to.carry the bags off his cart sometimes for a instance of 150 yards. Occasionally; lat big hotels, they got assistance. Usually, however, they did the work altme. Witness explained that the Avork was' dirty. His only luxury was tobacco. Boots and clothes. Avere purchased on ths time payment 'system, and his rent Avas 8s per week.- The union Avas claiming Is- 3d per hour for oiie-hors* Avaggons and Is 6d for two-horse.

He was poor, and it is much more difficult to be good Avheu one is poor than Avhen one is rich. It is (and all rich people should consider the fact) much more easy, if not to go to heaven, at least to-think one is going thither on"three thousand a year than on three hundred. Not - only is respectability more easy, as is proved by the broad fact that it is the poor people avlio fill the jails, and not the rich ones, but virtue and religion—of the popular sort. It is undeniably more easy to be resigned to the will of heaven when that will .seems bending just as avo AA r ould -have it, much more easy to have faith iii the giir.ness of providence when that goodness seems safe in one's pockets in the form .of bank notes; and to believe that one's children are under the protection of Omnipotence Avheii one can hire for them in half an hour the best medical advice in London. One need only look into one's heart to understand the disciples' astonishment at the ne\vs that "how hardly shall; they that have riches enter into the kingdom Bj heaven."—C Kihgsley. ' \^_\