A WORKING MAN'S GRIEVANCE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 101, 17 August 1876, Page 2

A WORKING MAN'S GRIEVANCE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE EVENING MAIL. Sir, —I am not accustomed to write to newspapers, but I feel it my duty to espouse the cause of the working men, and if you are true to your word you are the advocate of the working classes of this town, as well as of the rich. Seeing there are very few working men who care to write to a newspaper on the subject of their wrongs, I now take up my pen to do so for them, hoping, if it do no other good, that it will let outsiders know the true state of affairs. To begin with, I notice that nearlyevery paper in the Colony has advocated the introduction of immigrants as a boon to the country, and you among the rest; but now, when all the principal public works are stopped, you all cry stop immigration when it is too late for hundreds, and I may say thousands, that are already in the Colony that cannot get work enough to keep them in the necessaries of life, let alone the comforts. If you take Oamaru and Dunedin for example, where there are hundreds cannot o-et work at all, and when they get work, what is the wages ? What is eight shillings a day ? It may sound very well among the poorer classes at Home that only get two or three shillings perjday; butlsubmit that the cost of living, rent, brings us down very near the level of the working classes at home, and surely you wouldn't have us come 16,000 miles for a bare living or existence ; it isn't a living on Ss. per day, and one-third of the time idle. I tell you, Sir, that Bs. per day is not enough in a town like Oamaru, where everything is so expensive, especially when the men have broken time, as is the case in all the large out-door works. I daresay all this surplus labor is Avhat the employers like. If that is their aim, they've gained their ends completely ; for if there were a hundred men wanted to-morrow at Ss. a day, or even less, I believe they could be got. I will just give you a little idea of what it costs a family to live—say of four children—unless, of course, they stint themselves of the necessaries of life :

These figures might not suit everyone, but they are as near as possible. I forgot to mention milk, and the siindries are fixed at the lowest possible figure, and then reckon a man to make five days a week, at Bs.—£2 will bring his accounts square. Of course, if he has no rent to pay, he may save Bs. a week by my reckoning. So I hope you will admit, Mr. Editor, that there is very little encouragement for a working day-labourer to marry in this town if he wishes to save money, which is next to impossible if he lived as he ought to live, to do his work as he is expected to do, for everyone knows that a man does more work here in eight hours than they do in nine or ten at Home—or else he'd very soon get his walking ticket. I notice they are very liberal in giving wages to the ganger here, so that he may chive the men. I know works in this town where the boss gets more than double the men's wages, even if they work full time At the same time, a man of ordinary intelligence and experience would do quite well enough for the billet. "What I wish, Sir, is that the money should be a little more evenly divided, and not so much lavished on the officials. I have a great deal more to say, but I do not wish to write more at present, for fear you may not print it if I make it too long.—l am, &c, Live axd Let Live.

First then is s. d. Meat 7 0 per week Bread ... 3 6 do. Butter 2 G do. Tea and sugar.. 2 6 do. Coal and light.. i 0 do. Rent 8 0 do. Clothes 10 0 do. Sundries 2 6 do. £2 0 0 do.