Gee, there's not much in the Traditional Ballad Index:

Honest Working Man, The

DESCRIPTION: "Way down in East Cape Breton, where they knit the sock and mitten, Cezzetcook is represented by the husky black and tan. May they never be rejected, and home rule be protected, and always be connected with the honest working man."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (Fowke/MacMillan)
KEYWORDS: work fishing
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Fowke/MacMillan 31, "The Honest Working Man" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, HONSTWR*
Roud #4535
Notes: Written as a piece of irony aimed at the importation of surplus labor in the summer months.... Referred to in several sources as "the national anthem of Cape Breton workers." - SL
File: FowM

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The Ballad Index Copyright 2006 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.

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Roud lists only the version collected by Fowke and published in the Penguin Canadian book, and two versions collected by Creighton that are in the Nova Scotia Archives.
-Joe-

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Here is the Fowke text shown in the DT, with corrections:


HONEST WORKING MAN

chorus:
'Way down in East Cape Breton, where they knit the sock and mitten
Chezzetcook is represented by the husky black and tan.
May they never be rejected, and home rule be protected
And always be connected with the honest working man.

1. What raises high my dander, next door lives a Newfoundlander,
Whose wife you cannot stand her, since high living she began,
Along with the railroad rackers, also the codfish packers,
Who steal the cheese and crackers from the honest working man.

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

3. 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 subsists on outside labour,
In the winter scarcely earns enough to feed a sickly hen.

4. They cross the Bay of Fundy, they reach her on a Monday:
Do you see my brother Angus? Now tell me if you can.
He was once a soap-box greaseman, but now he is a policeman,
Because he could not earn a living as an honest working man.

From the Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Song/i>, Fowkes
@work @Canada
filename[ HONSTWRK
TUNE FILE: HONSTWRK
CLICK TO PLAY
RG