MR BUCHANAN'S SPEECH.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1811, 11 October 1884, Page 2

MR BUCHANAN'S SPEECH.

House Accommodation fob Railway Workmen.

(From Hansard.) Mr Buchanan moved, That Mr Speaker do leave the chair, in order that a Committee of the wholo House .• may consider of an address to the Governor, requesting liiiu to place a • sum of money on tho estimates which i enable the Government to build the i necessary house accommodation for : railway woikmen on the various lines i> of railway where such accommodation I is at present either miserably deficient s or altogether unobtainable. A large ; number of tho workmen on our railway , line had not such accommodation in ) the direction indicated in his motion as E insured them comfort, or met the ) demand of even common decency. ]t ; was perfectly true that a large number ; of them who were within tho reach of i centres o( population, large or small, i could get cottages at a rental that they i can .perhaps afford to pay, and there , was no doubt that, in such cases it was I better that they should house themselves than that they should be housed by the Government;'but what about the large number of workmen who were stationed in out-of-the-way places along the railway lines? Take for 1 instance the station he had referred to in a question a few clays ago—Cross's 1 Creok, on the Masterton railway line. ' At that place there were from thirty to 1 forty men—engineers, surfacemen, and 1 mechanics. The Government recognized the fact of their inability to get accommodation by building some cottages, but the number was sufficient 1 only to house about one-half of the men. The others had to build cottages or whares for themselves, and had to put them on land over which they had no hold whatever, In the event of luy 1 of these men being dismissed, or removed from this place to another, what were they to do with the cottages that they had built 1 The places had cost a considerable sum for these men —in some cases as much as from £4O to £6O. They had possibly to lose this money, for, if they asked the Government to take the cottages over, the roply perhaps would be that they were not what tho Goyernment would have built, and were ot no use, Or if they tried to sell to successors, the seller was in the hands of the buyer, and might get next to nothing, Surely the sufficient manning of the railwaylines could not be furthered by such a system as this. Surely the proper plan for the Government was to provide accomodation, and to charge a low rent which would be equivalent to interest on the money expended, On the very lowest gronnds, this was the action the Government should take; but itwas also their duty on higher grounds. These employes were men upon whom the safety of the travelling public largely depended, and it was very advisable that fchoy should be housed in a proper manner. The District Managers of our railways and the Inspectors of Permanent-way were perfectly well aware that they never could depend upon getting efficient men in these out-of-the-way places unless they could secure married men, They could not get single men to remain in one place for any length of time; but how could they expect to get married men, unless accommodation was provided for their wives and families? The case he had mentioned of Cross' Creek was only one of many similar cases along the various lines of the colony. There could be no question whatever about the fact. They were putting up large, ornamental, and expensive public buildings throughout the colony, in many cases wasting a great deal of money; and the Minister for Public Works, in replying to his question the other day, put in the plea of the large amountof money that would be | required to find the accommodation he was now asking for in this motion. Surely, when the colony was able to afford the large sums of money, they were now spending on public buildings - money for which they received no direct interest whatever—they could afford to meet the reasonable wants of these men, especially when the interest on the money so expended could be got direct from them. He thought the House would agree with him that the)

country owed these men a duty, in the way lie attempted to put it before the Rouse. He was satisfied the good sense ol' the House was with him in saying that the Government ought to put a sum on the estimates sufficient to meet the case of these men. He would not further enlarge on the subject, but simply move the motion standing in his name.