LIFE IN THE TRANSVAAL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2497, 10 May 1909, Page 2

LIFE IN THE TRANSVAAL.

\ NEW ZEALANDER’S EXPER- ‘ * ’ - lENCE.

Some interesting facts have been forwarded to a friend in this city by an Aucklander at present in the Iranivaat (states the “Auckland Star ). V J th regard to wages, lie crates that the mine. managers get from £oo to £ H per month; working carpenters or timber men and such like 13s to 20s a day , shift trimmers and men to look a.tei the bow 12s per shift. In some mines the shift is eight hours, and m others up to 9’. He adds: “Tlie money looks bur but it. is no'bigger than smallei money paid in other countries, op many things are so much clearer than m Nov Zealand. Butter is is 9d .per lb., ( . e c 3 3 S 6d- per dozen, and bacon Is bet -.per lb. Bread and meat are about your price, but a lot of things are very dear here, and it seems a very hard job to keep any of the wages. Houses are very-poor and very dear m the Transvaal. 1 The conditions about the mining towns are such that people who have lived > Auckland would never put up with. Mining Us the onlj thm„ Lew and everything else seems v«ij dead As Pretoria I saw 52 shops empty in three streets (one very long street); but everything there was dead slow with one exception., criminals, who, have increased by a- thousand a y ea since 1902, and now tjfero 600° criminals in ;a small place like'that. Carpenters working at other job- (not in the mines) are getting 12s bet a tiny,

and some, I 3i|ear, work fo;r loss. There are plenty of white men working on the railways for 3s 4rl (three and fourpcnce) a day, and very glad to get it. Men in New Zealand work long enough, but hero they beat them out and out. I have been to the graves of our boys who died in the war, and find that in every ease they are well cared for, with stones 'and iron crosses with the name and age, and ■where they came from inscribed thereon.”