THE ADDINGTON INQUIRY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10064, 4 February 1909, Page 1

THE ADDINGTON INQUIRY.

(Per Piitiss association.) Chrifitcliureh, February o.

In renly to a telegram from Mr T. E. Taylor, M.P., to the effect that the inquiry into the complaints rei'.ardinu the methods at Addington railway workshops to prove effective should start at the top and work downwards, the Minister for Railways has telegraphed : "In reply to your telegram re proposed inquiry at Addington, 1 am not aware that hundreds of men are impeached. What I do know is that the smiths 5 and boilermakors' shops have been reported as not doing satisfactory work. A full inquiry will be made into the charges, which must necessarily cover the whole question' of working in the workshops, and, as the General Manager is responsible for all work on the railways, he, as well as others, will have to exnlain the position, but beyond the administration of the workshops no power will be given to the Commissioners to investigate'.—(Signed), J. A. Millar. A WORKER'S OPINION. lOtago Daily Times Correspondent.) Christchurch, February 5. A man who has had practical experience of the work in the Addington Railway Workshops and who has als? served in the Hillside Workshops yesterday gave ! a Times reporter his impressions of the 'conditions prevailing. His views were summed, up in his final statement: '"There is not much wrong with the way the men work/' lie said :—'"A man who has had experience in big engineering shops at Homo has told me that the work at Addington is as hard as it is in Armstrong's, for instance, but the system is absolutely rotten. It is inefficient and wasteful, and it does not encourage a man to do his best. The man was quite willing to give details in support of his general condemnation of the system under which the shops are running. In the Hillside shops he said the tools were modern and complete. but at Addington the supply of tools for the litters were deficient to a , degree that meant constant loss of time. Laborers had been put on to work machines, with the result that competent men spent hours rectifying the blunders of other people. -Men got appointments through political intiuence. and >.ome of the foremen and heads oi' departments did not seem strong -enough or conscientious enough to insist that the employees under them should be efficient. An order would come from the head office that a certain man was to lje taken on, and he got a. place somewhere whether he was competent or not. 'I have seen men," said the informant, "start as litters who are absolutely incompetent. Mind. 1 am not condemning all the officers at the shops. The manager at Addington is a good man, : and the foreman boilermnker, who was singled out for special blame in the letter from Mr llonayne, is one of the best men you could find. There are other men in responsible positions who are absolute, wasters. On being asked for an instance of the waste of material to which he had referred, the man said that last year the Addington shops turned out the first locomotive of a new pattern. The plans were supplied from the head office in Wellington. Three sets of brake gear had to be manufactured, at a cost of about £6O each time, because the plans were faulty. The first set fouled the soring gear, ami the second set was ioo weak. At the third attempt a. satisfactory design was evolved. When the boiler was put down on the frame the steam pipes could not be got in because of their design, and a new lot o* pipes had to be made. Again the fanit lay with the designers. The first locomotive took five months to build, but with the perfected design evolved by a process of costly experiments it was now possible to build one in less than half the time. In the course of further conversation the workshops man mentioned various other grievances, all based on the lack of efficient- control. There were good foremen in the service, and the hands serving under these foremen got fair pay and fair treatment. On the other hand, there were bad foremen—men who seemed to have got their billets through a "pull" of some description, and tinder these officers the conditions were entirely bad. Where- political influence had' been allowed to touch the shops trouble had resulted.