D.—4a.

54

j"A. L. BEATTIE.

10. The Workshops Capital Account is the general Railways Capital Account I—Yes. There are quite a number of lesser appliances which are charged against the Workshops Commission Account, but any large outlay is charged to capital. .11. Is any allowance made for depreciation of machinery and charged against the Workshops ? —There is no Depreciation Fund ; everything is maintained, and the cost of maintenance is charged against the Workshops. 12. Rent of buildings ? —No rent is charged. 13. Repairs of buildings ?—1 could not myself tell you how the cost of repairs is dealt with. All the repairs are done by the Maintenance Branch. 14. At all events, there is no charge against the Workshops ? —Not as far as I am aware 15. I suppose something is placed to the depreciation of buildings ?—Yes, I think it is. 16. Is there any insurance on plant and buildings ?—Not as far as I am aware. 17. It is not charged against Workshops, at all events ? —No. 18. Stores, oil, waste, &c. ? —All that is charged against the Workshops. 19. Comes out of the commission ?—Yes. Representatives' Addresses. Mr. Hampton, Representative of the Workshops Employees. I am very pleased to be able to say that my duties on this occasion, as the workers' representative, have been very light indeed. No attempt has been made by Mr. Ronayne or by his informant to prove or substantiate in any way the charges which were made in the famous memorandum. On the contrary, Mr. Ronayne has now practically unreservedly withdrawn those charges, and his informant, whom we have every reason to believe is the Hon. Mr. Jenkinson, has also made no attempt to substantiate or prove anything whatever against the men at Addington. That being so, I say again, my duties have been very light. My duties have been further lightened by the evidence which has been brought forward by Mr. Beattie on behalf of the officers, and my duties have been still further lightened by the keen desire which you, Mr. President, and other members of the Board have exhibited to arrive at the true facts of the case for yourselves. I do not propose to enter into an exhaustive resume of the evidence, but I merely propose to take the scope of the inquiry clause by clause, and touch upon the different points as I think they affect the men at the works. The first clause, then, is " efficiency of the plant and appliances." I have noticed that you, as members of the Board, have closely questioned the various witnesses that have come before you on this point. You have paid several visits of inspection to the works, and I have no doubt that you will carefully weigh the evidence heard, and, as a result of the observations you have made, you will make recommendations in accordance with the evidence and in accordance with those observations. On that point Ido not wish to say anything further. I now come to the second clause, " the system of work adopted." Ido not propose to enter very fully into this subject further than to point out what I consider an injustice which has been done to the men under part of the system. I refer to what is known as the holiday " rushes." At those times, more especially in the fitting department, men are called upon to work overtime. Very often a man is called on to work on throughout the night into the small hours of the morning, but he is only paid at the ordinary rates —more often than not that is the case, owing to the subsequent holidays which are the cause of these rushes. This circumstance has for years caused a great deal of dissatisfaction among the men throughout the Railway service, and we think it is only fair that these men should be paid overtime rates for this work. It is not their fault that they are sent home for these subsequent holidays ; but you, I am sure, will recognise that it is'an entirely different thing to call upon a man to work sixteen hours a day at a stretch from working eight hours hi an ordinary day. I hope, therefore, that when the Commissioners are considering the system of work they will bear this matter in mind, and make such recommendations to the Minister as will cause an alteration of this system to be made and some greater measure of justice to be given to the workmen. Now I come to what I think is the main point of the whole inquiry in so far as the men are concerned. I refer to clause 3of the order of reference, " the discipline maintained." There has been a good deal of evidence on this point. In fact, I think a great part of the evidence has been given in connection with this clause. We have, in the first place, the evidence of the officers. We have the evidence of Mr. Ronayne himself. He is perfectly satisfied now from the reports which he has received, and also as the result of his own observations, that the discipline at Addington is as good as elsewhere. Mr. Jackson, the Locomotive Engineer ; Mr. Richardson, the Workshops Manager ; and all the Workshops foremen have spoken in terms of the highest praise of the discipline maintained. And then we have the evidence of outside officers —the evidence of Mr. McCarthy, of Mr. J. H. Fox, and also that of Mr. Forbes, of the Petone Workshops —all of whom spoke in terms of the highest praise of the workmen at Addington in so far as discipline is concerned. But in case the Commissioners should think that these men are in some way themselves incriminated in the charges which have been made, and that their evidence to that extent is liable to be biassed, I would direct your attention to the evidence of independent outsiders who have come before you. I should specially like to emphasize the evidence of Mr. Robertson. Here you had the evidence of a man who had every facility of seeing the work going on in the Workshops. He was practically on the premises daily for a period of something like two or three years. He had the whole run of the place, as it were. And what do you find him saying ? Mr. Robertson said he had every opportunity of seeing what was going on at the Addington Workshops. He thought the New Zealand workmen, especially those at Addington, compared more than favourably with the men in outside shops —the charge of loafing was, in his opinion, untrue. Then, sir, we had the evidence of Mr. Mauchlin, another outsider. He was at one time, as he stated in his evidence, an