WANTED—A SECOND-HAND RANGE.

Otaki Mail, Volume 26, 20 August 1919, Page 3

WANTED—A SECOND-HAND RANGE.

To the Editor. Sir,—An advertisement appears in your issue of to-day for a second-hand range. This, taken in conjunction with your report of last. Council meeting, is evidently wanted for use in a Council employee’s cottage. My inind goes back to a previous Council meeting at which the employee applied to have repairs effected to his cottage, to which the Council responded by raising his rent. Now, after some months’ delay (unavoidable perhaps) repairs are being done. Are the other repairs also of a second-hand nature? This man has been in the Council’s employ for a great many years and lias been a “faithful servant.’,’ As I propose at an early date, with your permission, to deal with another matter, another “faithful servant,” 1 stress those two words “faithful servant” because they have been used on more than one occasion at Council meetings, and will be used by me again. These are times when we hear of labour unrest. To my mind this policy of allowing an employee’s house to remain out of repair so long, and when repairs are asked for to raise his rent in the first place and then carry out second-hand repairs, is one of the many causes of “labour unrest.” I have not heard anything abbut a bath, second or any other hand. No doubt if there is one in the house, like the range in use, it wouldn't be even second-hand. But why speak of a bath? What right has a worker to such a luxury? Even if he does have to carry home with Mm a peck or more of the filth from the road wafted in his direction every few minutes by passing ears, the occupants of which in some cases look with scorn on the common worker, as if he were not a human being, but some c-reature whoso only use in life is to keep roads in good order for their special benefit. “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.”—Yours, etc., W. KNIGHT.