R.M. COURT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 3355, 7 November 1889, Page 2

R.M. COURT.

MASTERTON-SATURDAY. (Boforo Colonel Roberts, 8.M.) A. C. Milne v Simon Olsen.— Professional services £2 2s. Mr Pownall for plaintiff. Judgment for amount claimed and costs 6s.

F. Wright v John Logan. Claim £1 2s. Judgment for amount and costs.

Bartlett k Co v James Stuckey. Claim £4 4s, balance due for stumping and ploughing. Mr Pownall for plaintiff,

Theacreageandpricowereadinittod. Plaintiff stated Ike work bad been done in accordance with the verbal agteemrnt. Defendant agreed to lend him a plough which be used for one round, Was instructed to replace or burn the timber which bad been removed from the ground to be ploughed, 'Defendant said be could have the plough if he returned it the same as he got it. The manager said the plough was no good. It was broken the same when he left it as when be got it. Defendant stated plaintiff agreed to burn the timber as it would be quite as much trouble to put it back. He had burnt the majority of small stuff leaving the large trees, some of which be had rolled back on to the ploughed laud, others be bad left and dug round, and some he had rolled on to some adjoining land. He bad had two or three estimates of what it would cost to complete the contract and the lowest was £3. With respect to the plough it had been in continuous use, and although two or three tilings might want doing to it, it worked well. When Bartlett left it the beam was bent and the bridle broken, and he had to send it to Mastetton to get it repaired before he could use it, at a cost of £l4s. That made tho claim balance.

Gross examined: Tho repairs cost 14s, half man's time 4s, and cost of bringing it down 6s. The acreago in the first place showed nine acres, and oil measurement proved to be 11J acres. Could not swear tho plough was not in tho same state when it was taken as when left, It was not so damaged a week previous,

Donald McLachlan for tho defence eaid ho had inapected the ground, and to clear and burn the timber he estimated would cost £4,

Cross-examined: Only knew of one log that was not ploughed underneath. To the Court: The logs ranged from 2 feet to 3 feet 6 inches.

Samuel Bartlett, ono of the contractors, corroborated the evidenco of plaintiff as to the verbal agreement. Tho contract was for ploughing, aud as long as they got tho roots and logs out of the ground and put them in heaps that was all defendant wantod, James Loader said he was presont when the agreement was made, the roots and timber were to ho stacked in heaps on the ploughed land. Mr Pownnll objected to the amount for repairs to plough being put in as a sot off. it would have to be recovered in the usual manner.

Judgment for plaintifl for £2 and costs] 2s.

G. Wyetii v. W. Westbrook claim £3 Os 2d. Judgment for

amount and costs. Mary J. Hayes v. E. P. St John: Judgment summons, £l7. Jlr Pownail for judgment creditor: Mr Bunny for debtor. Order made for payment of on Ist December and £3 per month afterward,

Several cases were adjourned and others settled out of Court.

A Bill to Rob Railway Servants

I have received a copy of "Tho Government Railway Employes Insurance Act, 1889," That is its short title, but as the bill is not likely to become an Act, I have endeavored to describe it more accurately as above, It proposes to take a very large proportion of every railway servants wages to form an insurance fund, and to take it compulsorily. A man earning seven shillings a day will have to pay two shillings a week, Those earning nisro will pay more. This is making tho railway servant a kind of miser; he will have to pinch more than the average man is willing to do, in order to insure himself against accident or incapacity for work. But that is not all. If he voluntarily insured himself bo heavily he could go into one ef the numerous mutual insurance companies and know that lie would ultimately gel the full commercial value of all his premium payments. If he distrusted all insurance companies he could put his savings in tho Government Savings Bank, and have tho security of the colony for every penny lie paid in, and interest on it at a good rate. But by the provisions of the Bill to Rob Kailway Servants, be would have neither of these advantages. Ho would be liable to lose all the money ho had been made to pay. This sounds incredible, but it is before me now in Mr Didsbury's plain black and white, Here is clause 7

7. Any permanent employe who may quit or resign the Government railwoy service without permission from tlio proper authorities, or who shall ho dismissed for drunkenness on duty, or in consequence of any criminal offence, or of fraud, or of dishonesty, or of gross insubordination or misconduct, shall not bo entitled to any benefits mider this Act.

Dill you evor soo anything to bent tint ? A man pays Lis premiums from the ago of twenty till he is sixty, aud then once lie gets drunkbehold, lie shall not bo entitled to any bonefits under this Act, Another man works and pays his promium thirty years faithfully, and on the thjrty.first (s abused by some Jack in office and becomes guilty of teohnical insubordination and - shall not be entitled to any benefits under this Act. A third man, with rather more energy aud enterprise than the average, workß and pays his premiums eight years and then decides to seek a better fortune in some other line, He is a good man, and is refused permission. Hut he is not a slave by nature, though the farmers of this Bill thought he was; so he resigns without permission, andsfcall not be entitled to any benefits under this Aot. The bonefits of this Act aro such, in my opinion, that if it ever should become an Act the best thing any railway servant could do would be to resign at once, and save himself from being subjected to them,

But let us suppose'that a railway servant tells himself that the Government's bark is worse than its bite, and tha tin spite of incredibly foolish framing, the Act will yet be administered in accordance with common sense and common justice. Will he then receive h& pail in, with interest? tyot a bit of it. If he paid his compulsory premium of 2s a week from 21 to superanuation at 05, he has deposited with the Government £228 Bs, without saying any-

thing about interest cither simple or compound. If, now, lie dies at 65 all the Government will give his family is twelve months' pay, which is equal to £lO9 4s. If ho lives tlioy will givo him £BO 8s a year, so that if he dies before he is G8 and a half years old he aud his family won't get back the money lie actually paid away, The years of a man's life are three score and ten. An ingenious bill, truly! I am sorry I have not had time to work out what 2s a week for 44 years would amount to at compound interest. Calculating it at the 4£ per cent added monthly allowed by the Post Office Savings Bank it would amount. I should say, to a great deal more than the superanuated one could draw tf lie lived to be a hundred.

It the unhappy railway servant is discharged on account of accident or ill-health, his state is even worse. Instead of £B6 8s ho only gets £27 63 a year. In any case it Strikes mo that this Government Bailway Employed Insurance is insurance that doesn't insure,

Bad enough, isn't it, as it stands above ? Yet I have been looking at the best possible results. I have been assuming that a man who began by paying 2s a week was in receipt of 7s a day, and was still being paid at that rate when lie was discharged. You pay 2s a week whether you get 7s a day or less. But as a man gets older he wears out,jj gradually, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that the much tried railway servant may bo drawing less wages at GO than he was at 25. He may in the meanlimo have been paid more than 7s a day. Men have their ups and downs, and he may have done more important work, while on tho increased wages his forced insurancepaymentswouldalsobo increased. One would think—any ordinary fairminded Englishman would thinkthat the retiring allowance would be calculated on tho average of these forced'payments, But not so tho framers of this act of robbory. The threo clauses dealing with payments of allowances from the fund end up like this " At the rate of one-quarter of the pay he was entitled to receive at the dato of his retirement. 1 '

" At the rate of one-third tlio pay he was entitled to recoive at the date of his retirement."

i "At the rate sucli employee was , entitled to receivo at the time of his' i decease.... or superannuation," Nothing more iniquitous in principal than this was ever proposed to a ; freo Parliament. A man might , have paid premiums on the rate of 1 wages of a guard for thiriy years, i then get disabled and make crossingi keeper at some twopenny ha'penny , rate of pay, anb then his rotiring ; allowance ho calculated at a third or i fourth of this. I pity the Minister , that brought such a Bill before the New Zealand House of Representsi tives, It would be discredited for s years, and rightly discredited. 3 It is sufficiently obvious that tho profits of this scheme would be considerable, The framers of the bill have evidently seen as much, for claußo 17 provides that any surplus from tho fund is to be paid into tho Consolidated Fund, The bill won't : be popular, all the same. The . averago taxpayer may be hard up, r but I don't think lie will relish being • made to profit by wholesale robbery; I and spoliation.—Christchurch Press J