A JOB AT BROWN'S.

NZ Truth, Issue 119, 28 September 1907, Page 6

A JOB AT BROWN'S.

TO THE EDITOR

Sir,— Being a constant reader of your ' paper,' I would like to bring under your notice a case which happened through the medium of a registry office, keeper m Dunedin. To make a long story short, laborers wore advertised for at 7s and 7s Gd per day for Southland.. I and my mate on inquiring about them, were told 'that they were for Southland, at a place called Browns (a good many removes from cmlisatJJMU we

found out later). 'Anyhow, this reg-^ istry man informed us that ihe work was only - ordinary shovelling, and. m fact, of a light nature , he also informed us that we could either board at the local hostelry at Browns, or m the quarter provided j for the men, where there was a ! cook-shop. On this understanding I we took the job on after paying the usual fee (7s 6d). We left for Invercargill on the Monday, and arrived at Browns at 6.15 p.m. (by the way, the fare is lls Id from Dunedin to this place. On arriving at the hotel we enquired for a bed, but the landlady, seemed reluctant to give us one, and nothing else for it, we climbed up the hill to interview the boss— by this time we fell m with more who had come from Dunedin. After seeing the boss we went back and brought up our luggage, andalso invested m some tucker and a couple of pannikins, as we found out we had to "bach" and cook our own. Two m each bunk was the order of things, the hut didn't hold more, which, by the way, was minus a chimney. We had to boil the billy m the open air. By this time we made the acquaintance of some of the others who worked there, and they informed us it was pretty hot, and they were getting out of it very shortly. On starting m the morning, we found out that it was no ; exaggeration, moreover, the boss and his ganger were continually on the watch. The usual "smolco" prevalent on other jobs was an unknown luxury at Browns. You had to keep your "head down and hard at it for the eight solid hours. Between 12 and 1 you had to cook your own tucker (ours was made In the open air), thus providing no decent spell m the dinner hour at all. My mate had one daY and turned it up, and the second day settled me. After getting back to the township (which comprises an hotel, store, brick kiln, and blacksmith's shop), the landlady gave us a pretty good opinion of the boss of the lime quarry, and also his ganger, who is a Bible-carrying individual. She informed us that four men came out the week before, but on seeing the job, and being told, I suppose, that no smoking was allowed, they packed up their belongings and left the. place sadder but wiser men. While we were there another chap did iikewise. We were told that this lime-king couldn't obtain men through the registry offices m Southland, and used to get them through a merchant m Invercargill. This scheme, however, fell through, and he was obliged to send to Dunedin, a distance of 159 miles. He has a standing order m Dunedin. All the men there, with the exception of, I think, three, came from Dunedin, and every one of them are only lasting it out to make expenses. The longest timed one has been there about three months, the rest, numbering eleven, have been victims for periods varying from four days to a fortnight. Most of them are men who have been used to hard work, and they expressed the opinion that it was nothing short of slave-driving. One mentioned that the boss oudit to walk up and down on the hill with a rifle on his shoulder, it would make it lookmuch more appropriate. Now, don't you think that the man who employs labor for this job should give a truthful representation of what the work is like, otherwise it savors much of grabbing 7s fid for nothing, at all events, it amounts" to a pretty expensive job. I may mention that all the chaps there were a decent lot of fellows, fully prepared to do a reasonable hard day's work.— l am. etc. HUMANITY.-