The Eight-hour Day.

Otago Witness, Issue 2895, 8 September 1909, Page 25

The Eight-hour Day.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib, — In the Otago Witness of September 1 appeared an article on " Early Otago and" Eight Hours," in which the writer asks for " evidence in substantiation or refutation of the _ statement " that the movement originated in Otago It certainly did not. The name of the founder of the system was Mr Samuel Duncan Parnell, a resident of Wellington, who arrived there as a passenger on the Duke of Roxburgh, which left England on October 5, • 1839, and reached Port Nicholson on February 7, 1840. The question had been started by him during the voyage, and was approved |of by the labourers on board. The following appears in "Brett's Early History of New Zealand " (page 498) :— " Mr Parnell, i immediately on his arrival, was employed by Mr Hunter, sen. (Willis and Co.), to superintend the erection of a large store. This brought him into contact -with the laboui? market, and Mr Parnell established the eight-hours' system, which soon spread to the neighbouring colonies, and is the system at the present day. At this time skilled labour was 5s per day of eight hours." That was in 1840. Now, as to labour hours in Otego eight. years later, the following is an extract from a letter written -' by Captain W. Cargill to the secretary of ' the Otaeci Association : — "'Diinediri, September 23, IJ.^B. Having mentioned than - the rate of wages is 3s a day for labour and 5s for mechanics, I should acid that- the •ixrv-nt work are *ixod at 30 hours a, day — viz., from 6 to 9 in the morning, 10 to 2, and 3 to 6 (as in Scotland), except, on Saturday, -when a -gun is fired at 12 o'clock noou to correct ths time, and also as a signal for leaving off work for the rest of the day. I should also mention that the terms for experienced farm servants engaged by the year are £30 in money, and food." I find that Henry Humphries Jaokson, who landed in Wellington on January 3, 1840, from the barque Cuba, with the surveyors who came out to survey for the New Zealand Company, wrote that "the eight hours' work a day was agreed to on board during the voyage out, and was pufc into execution immediately the surveyors set to work in Wellington." " The first Labour Conference took place in October, 1840, in front of German Brown's (Barratt's Hotel, Clay Point, Wellington) to decide whether a day's work should be eight or 10 hours. It was resolved that eight hours wbb to be a working day, and that anyone offending should be ducked in the harbour." — Cyclopedia of New Znnland Wellington volume, page \ 891.) I trust the above extracts will satisfy your correspondent. As the first surveyors who laid off Port Chalmers and Dunedin came from Wellington and Nelson, they probably brought the ideas -of the eijrhfc hours' day with them, and they gradually . bore fruit. — I am, etc., W. H. S. Roberts.