Truth THE LOT OF THE WHARF LABORER.

NZ Truth, Issue 122, 19 October 1907, Page 4

Truth

THE LOT OF THE WHARF LABORER.

Published Every Saturday Morning at Luke's Lane (off Mannersstrebt), Wellington , N.Z. SUBSCRIPTION (IN ADVANCE), 13Sj PER ANNUM. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1907.

"Truth" always wants to lend a helping hand to the worker on the wharves, not only m Wellington, but everywhere m New Zealand, and accordingly it wants to ask the "big chiefs" of Wellington's Harbor Board what it, the Board, thinks is a living wage, so far as the Wellington worker is concerned. Of course, nobody would credit this Harbor Board of ours with caring a tinker's blessing how the worker farcsJ. As long as he works and sweats over it and doesn't become too obstreperous, the Harbor Board smiles on him, and makes a big fuss over converting a pig-stye into a waiting room suitable for human beings waiting .tbout on the oft-chance of getting work, and it is only parsons of the J. J. North type who have any regard for the wharf laborer, and when he does condescend to think of him at all, it is as a gambler, a rogue, and a. thief, who ought to be kept under the strict surveillance of the police, for fear he'll play "two-up" instead of going to bethel and passing his pence on to the plate, to keep lasty North and smirking, oily. »a«V.uous Missioner Moore m comfort and luxury. The troubles of tliese pragmatical pietists, whether the worker gets a living wage. They have not a thought for the poor worker m the cold, wet, miserable and bitter months of winter. They think as much of the workers welfare as do most of the bumbles of this blessed Harbor Board of ours, though, truth to tell, a little electricity has been galvanised into them lately, and "Truth" wants to stir them into activity once again; Now, m this progressive country of ours, where there is no unemployed, and where poverty is unknown, where wages are high and the cost of living still higher, there wilJ, no ' doubt, be a few cavillers m our midst who. will put it down to "Truth's" imaginative powers, when it is asserted that there are innumerable toilers on the wharves m Wellington whose earnings, at any rate during the winter months, have not averageu thirty shillings per week. Now, when we are occasionally told by female Charity Aid Board inspectors who Ihink they know but have never tried it ok, that the worker m

Wellington, with his family, can live like fighting cocks on £2 per week, and have threepence to spare to put on i&e plate on the Sabbath, the question must arise what sort of existence the thirty-bob-a-week wharf laborer, wife and children must have. It is an economic fact that living is dearer m winter and that wages are lower, and m addition to that fact work on the wharves m winter is not so plentiful as m the spring or summer months, and what is still more to the point, labor necessary for wharves m, winter months does not overburden the market. Consqquentlv, it is m the winter months that the Harbor Board foreman, one Glennie, having no choice, we presume, takes on men, who he very well knows are married and have families, and; are consequently hampered m any desire they may have to trek to the country. Now, it is with this foreman, Glennie, that "Truth" wants to have a little chat, and, incidentally, to let the Harbor Boarders know the kind of capers this chap resorts to m the matter of singling out favorites for work. One «f the small matters that helped to bring about the dockers strike m Great Britain was the ganger's favoritism, and it is just as well to know that, not that there is any immediate danger of a wharf laborers' strike m Wellington, but just as "Truth" says it is well to know these things. Of Glennie, excepting that he is foreman, or boss, and takes on hands on the wharf, this paper knows nothing and wants to know less. Still, he is pursuing a little game that he had better desist at, otherwise there might be trouble m store for him. In the winter time Glennie is glad to put on married men, and men he knows to be married and having families dependent on them. Now that summer is approaching, and with every possibility of fine or fair weather, Glennie is showing his teeth to the married men, and is passing them by and single men, "boys^of a feather," who mostly come from across the water are being put on m shoals, and these fellows get plenty of time and earn as much as £4 per week, and it is easy to believe that Glennie is, by them, reckoned a "blurry" fine fellow. These single men, when winter sets m go out of the city and work up-country, but when the sky is clear and all nature is m bloom, and when there is no danger of getting wet and catching a cold, back to Wellington they come and obtain work on the wharves, while the married men, who stuck to Glennie m the winter, are given the cold shoulder, and are advised to go on the land, or get into Parliament, or get some other hard and honest employment. Glennie has his favorites, and seems to have a fondness for' the single, chap, and what this paper, m its usual simplicity, innocently asks is : is there anything at the bottom of this wretched favoritism. Glennie' had better draw m his horns and recognise that married men, honest, hard workers who have families dependent on them, who have their homes m Wellington, have a just and prior claim to work than has the nomad, with no settled place of abode, and who won't settle down and consider the birth-rate question, and whose only trouble is the price of beer and other commodities sold over bar counters. Glennie ought to recognise this, otherwise the Harbor Board might do it for him, and m the end biff him out on his pink ear-