Yeah Beer, it comes up on two or three previous threads. Something I did notice is that the lyrics in DT are slightly different from those in the Beaton Archives at the Cape Breton University. The DT makes no reference to the coal mines or the CNR so it may be older than what I was referring to in the previous post:

The Honest Working man
Collected by Ron MacEachern from the singing of Charlie MacKinnon
Tune: "The Hills of Mullabawn"
© From the collection of Ron MacEachern.

Chorus:
'Way down in east Cape Breton, where they knit the socks and mittens,
Highlanders represented by the dusty, black and tan.
May they never be rejected, and home rule be protected
And always be connected with the honest working man.

1. I think I will meander with my friend the Newfoundlander;
He is the finest fellow that ever graced this land.
His name it is Dan Alex, and he can talk the Gaelic
We work down in the coal mine with the honest working men.

2. When the leaves fall in the autumn and fish freeze to the bottom,
They take a ten-ton schooner and go 'round the western shore.
They load her with provisions, hard tack and codfish mizzens,
The likes you've never heard of since the downfall of Bras d'Or.

3. We cross the Bay of Fundy, we arrive there on a Monday:
Have you seen my brother Angus? Oh please tell me if you can.
He was a CNR box greaseman, but now he's a policeman,
And he now earns his living like an honest working man.

4. The man who mixes mortar gets a dollar and a quarter,
The sugar factory worker, he gets a dollar ten,
While there's my next-door neighbour who lives on just his labour,
And in the winter doesn't earn enough to feed a sickly hen.

Repeat Chorus