FRUITGROWERS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 256, 16 September 1902, Page 3

FRUITGROWERS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL.

TO the editor. noticed two of your correspondents attempt a reply to my note which appeared in your issue of the 9th. One signed Parent, in which he states my assertion is wrong and that the fruitgrowers do not want the school closed merely to employ cheap child laboui. I still refute Parent’s statement and from experience can prove that my assertion is the correct one. He (Parent) says the boys get well paid, when t*e boys in some instances cet nothing at all. I know a case in which two boys attending the Catholic school were employed two weeks nicking fruit foraWaftuna frnr grower and never got a farthing for their labour. Then Parent attacks me on my liberality and asks me to give a few pounds to the school. In reply, I may inform Parent that my liberality very far exceeds his generosity, and if Parent had any respect for his own family he wou d sweep the dirt from off the threshold of his own door and po’ish the brans plate and let it be clearly read •• Cheap child labour So much for parent. Now for Grafter, who also denies, in toto, that my assertion of the fruit growers such as Grafter are selfish and unscrupulous men. 1 think any intolUgent person who reade Grafter's epistle will conclude thatmy statement is perfectly true. I ho G'after states that the strawberry growers pay as high wages an any em■ployer, in fact, higner tnan the wage

awav '<.<l to boys by the Ai hilr.uao • C"tir , ns they fixed the wage tor boys ai 5> pe week. Now, Graf or must have drawn upon his imagination for frets, and bis brains being very low down in boots instead of being in his li-nd, have entirely misled him in hi- comprehens on of the truth, but of course tins is » common characteristic of those canine species of which Grafter seems to be 1 very strongly endowed; Then, again, Grafter savs that tee fruitgrowers piy the average -e io-.l oov more than he i.s wort I '. I prcMimc ihit, the hull and mastiff dogs in Wiiimate hrve too much intellig- nee to swallow the poisonous b it, v.-■;i ?h Grafter had very much better keep at home to poison the small birds with and so help to save his crop of fruit and thereby enhance the income of the season by employing a few more children from the district school. If Grafter had a case worth any defence he would no; troub’e his head—Oh, I beg pardon, his brains (although very low down in his boots) about the band of snarlers and growlers in Waimate, who do more growling than work ; very likely, because judging from the signature Grafter must do it all. Now, air, I think Grafter’s strteraent beats out ehis tact, that there is no ne< essity for ihe echoed to bo closed at all, because the strawberry growers will get boys whether the acho 1 is closed or not ; and then he his rounded up the bull and mastiff dogs again to protect themselves, when carrying his black bag around the district soliciting aid to help him in his vai \ etlorls to cru.-h poor suffering humanity. He, Grafter, touches upon almost evei v subject un ier the sun because he ar d otiieis of these unscrupulous so-called employers cannot show any just cause or reason why the .•■clmol should be closed, and notwithstanding the suggestion in your leader thrown out lo the School Committee ti clo-e for ihe benefit of the fruitgrowers—Giafter included —I hope Mr Hamilton and the Committee will not accede to their request, and therefore carry out the duties for which they were elected, and protect the intersts of the school and the future welfare of the children in the Waiinate district, and by so doing will do justice to the headmaster and his staff, not withstanding the malicious calumny heaped upon them by these would-be employers. Thanking you, sir, in anticipation.—Yours, etc., Householder.