McLEAN V. POSTLETHWAITE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2018, 11 March 1890, Page 2

McLEAN V. POSTLETHWAITE.

TO THE EDITOE. Sie, Granted that Mr McLean might be naturally supposed to have known what the rules posted in Mr Postlethwaite’s shed were, is a man to be punished on supposition, without proof? Even if it had been proved that he knew what those rules were, for what crime was ho mulcted in the sum of £2 lOs ? The conditions we all work under are the laws of our country, and there is no law m New Zealand or any part of the British realm that empowers employers to retain wages earned by an employe. Rules or laws made by private persons, although read and posted in a prominent position, do not over-ride the law nor constitute an agreement. Men have been told this from the bench times without number. This is the first instance of a paid magistrate attempting to enforce such rules that has came under my notice. Our <l.P.’s may sometimes fall into such errors, but considering the way they are shuffled on to the bench, and what sort of men some of them are, we are never surprised at their judgments. But a j magistrate paid with public money to administer justice needs to be a different sort of person. It takes two to make a bargain. If the rules referred 'ffo had been drawn up in the form of an agreement, stamped, and signed by Mr McLean, he would have been bound by them whether he had taken the trouble to ascertain what they were or not. W orking men have enough to contend with without being forced to accept the conditions of bargains which they never make. The lives ot most of us are not worth living for our own sake. Circumstances over which we have no direct control often force us to accept employment under conditions that we know are very unju-t Burns says in his address to Auld Clootie—“l’m sure smi’ pleasures it miun gie, E’en to a deM, To aoorclo poor wretches such as me, Anri hear them aqueei.” And it puzzles me to understand what plea-mre or profit employers hope to gain by their common attitude to workmen; and their premature grey hairs, and the anxiety stamped on 'every feature, do not suggest the habitat of a soul serene. They generally attribute all their failures to a too high rate of wages. There was a Willie Hara, a carter in Dundee, who thought that carting would pay better if the horse could be learned to live on nothing. He tried to break him in to it gradually, and said he had him learned to live on one straw a day when the animal died. It seems as if our employers are trying the same experiment with us, but we are not all so docile, and if we have to die of the same disease we will die a little harder than Willie Hara’s horse did. But although workmen were to work for nothing employers would not be successful under the present system. Where works don’t pay there is generally more loss through careless and uasldlful workmanship in every few weeks than would pay the wages bill of as many years. This is especially the case in working machinery. It is not to be expected that men will be careful where they are treated like things and used for convenience, and they cannot acquire skill when they are continually shifting. I worked for a very successful firm, where over a hundred thousand hands were employed, many of whom were in the same employ for 20, 30, 40, and a few as long as 50 years. There was a rule in that peace that no engagement would terminate without a week’s notice from either s’de, and an order from thej head of the firm, strictly adhered to that that rule should not be in the way of preventing a man from bettering his position P Contrast that with Mr Postlethwaite’s complaint. It appeared from the evidence he gave in court that he would not have cared so much if Mr McLean had had to beg or starve after leaving, but going to Mr Tripp’s, where he could do better, was an unpardonable offence,—l am, etc., Wm. L. Duncan.