A BOOK ABOUT WATERSIDERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 513, 22 April 1949, Page 18

A BOOK ABOUT WATERSIDERS

THE WELLINGTON WATERSIDERS. Sy P. N. Pettit. Published by the Wellington Watersiders’ Industrial Union of Workers. HIS is obviously the expansion of a thesis for an M.A. degree. It is carefully prepared, well documented and set out, and it equally carefully avoids any discussion of the really important matters that emerge during the survey. Certain things that the public should know are very well presented; for example, the efforts to mitigate the casual nature of waterside work- and the ceaseless struggle for better conditions of labour. Since an industry does not develop in a vacuum some analysis of the relations of the watérsiders to the community as a whole would appear necessary. It is not, however, sufficiently stressed that waterside work is the most dangerous occupation in New Zealand as far as accidents are concerned. An examination of the factors making for danger and of what constitutes "dirt money"

could reasonably have been expected. Lighting of the wharves, the provision of safe gear and of adequate shed space, the re-organisation of transport from the sheds are all matters meriting discussion. It is unfortunate that most of these did not fall within the scope of the author’s inquiry. Those interested in the early days of industrial organisation in our country will, however, find a good deal that they will not find so easily anywhere else. The only pity is that a wider view was not taken, The explosive nature of the relations between the watersiders and certain other sections of the community needs probing, and in no field is the necessity for guidance in industrial re-

lations more acute.

J.D.

McD.