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oe STP, [No. 7.] TO THE POINT. What a Workingman thinks of the IP. The following is a verbatim report, taken from the Oshawa Vindicator, of a speech made by Mr, M. FoLky, a moulder in the Oshawa Stove Foundry, at a recent political meeting : GENTLEMEN,—You have called on me, but perhaps what I have to say will have little interest for you, though. it had, I can assure you, a good deal of interest for me at the time. The time to: which I refer was the time Sir John Macdonald appealed to the electors of Kingston in 1874. A great hue and cry was got up against him that he was a non-resident of Kingston, and was not doing much for the city. I was working in the loce motive works at the time. It was comparatively a small concern, but was gaining and was getting ready to do the work of the country. Amongst other things we were told that if we put out Sir John the works would be given contracts for the Intercolonial, and would run full time, and the men be kept busy. Well, sir, they put out Sir John, and the promised change was looked for. It came soon enough. The Mackenzie Government gave the contract for twenty-two locomotives, to a United States firm; the Kingston works were closed dow…
oe STP, [No. 7.] TO THE POINT. What a Workingman thinks of the IP. The following is a verbatim report, taken from the Oshawa Vindicator, of a speech made by Mr, M. FoLky, a moulder in the Oshawa Stove Foundry, at a recent political meeting : GENTLEMEN,—You have called on me, but perhaps what I have to say will have little interest for you, though. it had, I can assure you, a good deal of interest for me at the time. The time to: which I refer was the time Sir John Macdonald appealed to the electors of Kingston in 1874. A great hue and cry was got up against him that he was a non-resident of Kingston, and was not doing much for the city. I was working in the loce motive works at the time. It was comparatively a small concern, but was gaining and was getting ready to do the work of the country. Amongst other things we were told that if we put out Sir John the works would be given contracts for the Intercolonial, and would run full time, and the men be kept busy. Well, sir, they put out Sir John, and the promised change was looked for. It came soon enough. The Mackenzie Government gave the contract for twenty-two locomotives, to a United States firm; the Kingston works were closed down, and we were turned out on the streets. But then we had the great comfort of having Mackenzie and Blake im power. I went looking for work, and finally got a job at Barrie for a short time, but the hard times and American goods sent me adrift vain. But you see, sir, there was the comfort of thinking we had the Maenzie party ruling the country. I came down te Toronto, and the first sight that met me was eight car loads of sewer pipe from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. It struck me that if sewer pipe was in such demand, why Wamilton’s Foundry, which was especially equipped for such work, would be busy. Well, sir, I went there, but found the foundry almost closed, and the sand heaps dry and levelled down. No work there when the sewer pipe was made in Pittsburg. But the Mackenzie Government ruled. I was on a general tramp, and finally landed in Ottawa, the seat of this Government. When I got there, the members of the Govern- ment were giving grand banquets and dances to their friends, and all about them was high jinks and jollity, but it was not so, unluckily, for the laboring men. They were digging sewers, and men begged and prayed to be taken on the work. J saw men seize a pick or a shovel and jump down into the mud, siarting to work in hopes that they could force them- selves on the foreman, but if was no use, The suffering there I don’t want to see again. You may not believe what I am going to tell you, but it is a fact for all that. A workingman pass- ing along the market ccived a piece of beef and ran hoine with it. He was followed by the market clerk and others, and they saw him open the door and throw the meat on the floor. When they got up they saw the starving children tearing the raw meat and devouring it like dogs to stop their hunger. The market clerk was sickened at the sight, and said, “ Why didn’t you tell us you were reduced to such a state 2” «Tell you,” said he; “haven't L begged the city and the Government, and everybody to vive me anything to do, that I might earn bread for my children honestly, but none was to be had anywhere. When I saw my children starving, then I could not stand it any longer, and took the meat.” Gentlemen, f vote for the National Policy that changed this, and gave work to those that wanted work, and when I think of my wife and family I could not do anything else. IT don’t see how any workingman can do anything else when he thinks of the sufferings of the unemployed workingmen under the Mackenzie Govern- ment. Published by the Industrial League for gratuitous distribution.—FREDERIO Nionois, Secretary, Toronto, Canada, (7)