DEPARTMENT OF LABOR.

NZ Truth, Issue 75, 24 November 1906, Page 5

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR.

Queer System of Collecting Fines.

Bully the Poor and Allow the Rich Free Play,

The course of justice, per the Arbitration Court, like the course of true love, appears to. run over a rather rocky track. The Labor Department and its officials seem to give themselves a vast amount of unnecessary worry and letter-writing over very trifling affairs, whilst matters of infinately greater moment are allowed to slide. It is remarkable how most G-ovemment Departments will waste days and weeks and use up acres of pood foolscap m a fruitless endeavor to discover whether the office boy was justified m putting m a docket for 2d for tram fare, while a. matter involving some thousands of pounds is most persistently shelved from month to month. The Department of Labor is no exception to the rule, but carries out its work m the good old dunderhe&ded way. Some little time ago a butcher named S . B. Swiney, was cited to appear before the Arbitratian Court for some trifling breach of the butchers' award. By some extraordinary means the notice

: GOT MIXED UP or the man. who wrote it was mixed up, or something. Anyhow, instead of Swioey, the butcher, beinf called upon to show why he shouldn't be fined for doing something contrary to the rules and regulations of the Union, another Swiney, who wasn't a butcher at all, received the notice and put m an appearance. Anyhow, this made no difference to the merits of the case and the right Swinev was duly fined a quid and three shillings costs. Now Swinev. being only a working butcher, and having a family,, is not by any means a millionaire, a<nd the best he could do was to pay 10s down and promise the • other 13s as soon as he weathered the financial s^orm. He was very quickly notified by the Department that the balance was wanted m a hurry. He replied pointing out his position. This brought more foolscap. Extreme measures were threatened, and a little later came a fmal letter statin"- that if that 13s wasn't paid by a certain date a distress warrant would' be taken out. The amount of energy displayed by the Department m collecting this man's 13s would naturally lead the public to tlmrk that the officers were .

A VERY fcBALOUS BODY of Civil Servants, and that the various fines were raked m with a most gratifying regularity. It is not so, however. A master butcher was fitted a fiver some time previous to Swinev's. trouble, and strange to say his fine remained unpaid for months, and there were no notices, requests, or threats forthcoming; from the Department. Perhaps the officials were too busy ' collecting Swiney's 13s to bother about the other fellow's fiver. It may ha^ r b^sn that, or it may be that one Jpfsh<&principles of the Department** is to worry the soul-case out of -.,a fooibr man for a few paltry shilling^ bwiwp, and to let- the rich man pay vuVv'h^ quids whenever he darned^g|l^a:|es^ - v . •„..,.,.■■'/ .