THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1908. A HERO IN THE PAST.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9160, 6 August 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1908. A HERO IN THE PAST.

The co-operative labourer does not appear to have a very happy time of it at the hands of the Government, and when he complains the official ear ip extremely unsympathetic. It seems that the co-operative labourers on the Broken River railway works have been "enjoying" a very rough time of it lately, and wl|tn one considers what the weather has been like in the South Island recently, it requires no great stretch of imagination t» realise that co-oper-ative labourers at Broken River would suffer a good deal. According to a correspondent of the "Christ' church Press," who has, there is some reason to fear, "piled up the agony" pomewhai, adequate provision is not made for the comfort of the men arriving on the works. He describes the arrival of himself and others at Broken River thusly: —"The whole thing was a ghastly bungle, and the immediate suffering entailed by the consequences fell upon the fifty wet and shivering wretches who waited, numbed, hungry, and despairing, in the snow to learn their fate. Ultimately we j

were told that no tents could be provided for sleeping quarters that night, but that we should have to camp in two parties in two unoccupied houses a couple of miles out in the vicinity of our prospective employment. First the storekeeper was visited. Our marketing completed, we set out along the frozen road for our quarters for the night. Of the two deserted house 3 one contained five rooms and the other four. Thirty men herded in one, and twenty in the other. Each ] had a kitchen, another room with a fireplace, and two other little apartments. It was growing dusk when we arrived, and the scene in our house beggare.l description. There was no furniture of any kind, save the wooden frame of an old doublebed, which some youths were hacking to pieces, for firewood. The floors wer« littered with desolated humanity. Some were boiling billies, other? were munching forlornly at hunks of dry, stale bread. A few candles disposed abroad made the gloom the more depressing. Snow brought in upon the men's boots melted in muddy pools. The wind cut and lashed the faces of everyone whenever the door was opened. ......

Forty men arrived two days la*er, and these also were pent to share the miseries of the cottager, and would be required to so remain for at least four days longer. In the meantime very few were provided with work, and most of us were literally eating our heads off. There is no doubt about the hills, and those who slept in tireless tents endured suffering even greater than that entailed by a sojourn at the cottages. The framework of the tents and the stitches being wet the tents themselves j damp and all pitched on ground partly covered with snow, rendered the situation the more grievous. A hard frost set in that night, and in the morning the men's moustaches were frozen stiff. Their breathing had formed little patches of ice on the blankets near their mouths, the interior of the tents and the framework were covered with hoarfrost, and their boots were frozen to the floor. Strong, able-bodied young men crept about as though stricken with ague. The plight pf the old men can be but dimly imagined. There is only one remedy for the state of things described, and it is one that the public, in the interest of common humanity should insist upon the State applying before another workless man is I permitted to be sent by the Labour Department to Broken River. Habitable accommodation should be provided for his reception." The Mini ster for Public Works considers that the story is highly coloured, and defends the Department by remarking, "I and some of my brother members have gone through the same sort of experience. We have had to sleep upon bare boards, and upon arriving at our destination dripping wet have had to make our own fire." There are many in this country who have suffered privations of one kind and another, and everyone, we feel sure, will sympathise with, and admire the Hon. W. HallJones for the heroic and spartan life which he has led in the past, but people of a reasonable frame of mind will excuse the co-operative labourer for asking why he should be called upon to suffer unnecessary and severe hardships because the Minister for Public Works has slept upon bare boards. We must confess that we entirely fail to see Mr Hall-Jones' point. The fact is obvious that ordinarily habitable accommodation should be provided for the co-oper-ative labourer, and the very unpleasant experiences through which Mr Hall-Jones and other members of the House have passed need not be cited as reasons for the Public Works Department failing to provide such accommodation.