HINDU WORKMEN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3026, 5 December 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)

HINDU WORKMEN.

Mb A. Deakin, describing the operatives at pojie engineering works on tho Sutlej, in India, says :—

Lines of Ohangras are bu3y in the work of repair, burrowing like beavers as they extract the injured boulders, and filing away without distinction of sex, basket on head, like columns of busy ants, removing sludge and shingle. They work ten hours for the sum of 4hi at this kind of task, though some skilled labourers permanently employed receive as much as L 2 or even L 3 a month. Tho lacter rates are high compared with those which they obtain at ordinary vocations, and afford them opportunities which they often seize of taking a holiday for a week or ten days, in order to visit their friends or celebrate a festival. The best pattern men in the engineering sheds earn as much as Is 3d per day ; while fitters, moulders, and engineers of deftness and experience are sometimes paid 2s a day. The average is, however, lower than this. Those who are in receipt of such wages are certainly no less roidy to find excuses for absence than their unskilled associates, and the consequence is, so tho foremen tells me, that he is compelled to give muoh of his work to them by the piece, practically arranging small contracts, which the Hindus prefer, as permitting them more freedom. None of the people appear to ba sufficiently civilised to sacrifice their lives for the purpose of obtaining the means to live, or to squander their health and comfort in order to acquire proporty which they will bo unable to use or enjoy. They" are barbaro.lß enough only to work so loner as it geems wise, and to insist upon, having their share of re«t and recreation ns they go. To work for the sake of work, day after day, without regard to current spectacles and amusements, family gatherings or public celebrations, seems a foolishness to the Natives, which noqe of the missionaries so far have been able to persuade them is necessary to salvation. Hence, so far as appearance goes, they are a good deal happier and more lighthearted than the anxious-browed white engineers, who stride here, there, and everywhere, and ardent, amidst the cheerful indifference and unconcern of the Hindus, In Asia, as in the South Sea Islands, tho indomitable Briton ia an object of surprise and pity rather than of admiration, because of the untiring energy, sleepless zeal, and indefatigable persistence which he displays in trying to do to-day what might just as well be done to-morrow, and, so far as tho Changra cares, might never be done at all. A pious ignoring of the consequences to follow from inaction renders the Natives somewhat uncomfortably suspicious of the religious sincerity of the Englishman, who appears to regard the future with unmitigated distrust, displays a total want of confidence in the beneficence or justice of Nature generally, and the river especially, leaving nothing to Providence except what he cannot control himself.