BOY IMMIGRANTS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 838, 9 June 1910, Page 6

BOY IMMIGRANTS.

DOES THE DOMINION WANT THEM? A MINISTERIAL VIEW. According to tho Hon. T. Mackenzie (Minister for Agriculture), it would be better, if the workle.'s Homo boys (whom it is suggested might bo placed with New Zealand farmers) should receive training in farm work before they wero brought out here. ■ Tho ' Government, he proceeded, wero urged to take a good many of these- lads, ami it thought that fifty lads would not make any difference one way or another to the people of tho Dominion. He understood that tho wholo of tho batch could be absorbed in tho Wellington district alone, under conditions favourable alike to the farmers and tho lads themselves. It was tho intention of tho Government to see that the conditions under which the boys would livo and work were' reasonable and, comfortable. If our lands wore to bo' opened up and settled, the country must have a very considerable increase in its population. "Whilst it is contended," he added, "that there is labour sufficient for present requirements, we must have a large increase of population of the right class to meet the needs of the future, if the developments which are now imminent take place.". A LABOUR VIEW. Mr. 13. J. Carey, president of the Wellington Trades Council, holds that any extension of the system of Stat'j-aided immigration, whilst the present conditions, obtain, would be wrong, and he considers that tho Government, before taking any steps in the mutter should have taken counsel with the heads oi the labour organisations. ' Speaking to a DosnxioN reporter yesterday, he said the question had not yet been dealt with by his counsel, and he could therefoic only express his own views. The importation of boy labour was open to many abuses, lit was a form of contract labour to which unionists wero always opposed. In connection with tho sending of sumo of Dr. Barnardo's boys to Canada, the labour organisations had to interfere in order to prevent the absolute sweating of crippled boys and weaklings by the employers to whom they .were sent.

"What I fear here," said Mr. Carey, "is that when dairy farmers are in such a position that they have to sweat their own children, according to what the schoolmasters say, in order to pay the mortgagees, any poor imported boys, with nobody to appeal to, would have a pretty hard time of it. The Department apparently takes the view that as they are importing only 50 boys, the competition among employers to get the boys will lead to good conditions being offered; Why should affluent squatters or farmers be provided with cheap boy labour at 'the. expense of tho State ? The evidenco in the farm labourers' cases in Canterbury showed that tho labourers aro sweated. It is not to be expected that the .trade unions will approve of any system of State-aided immigration so long as workers already hero canot see how to carry on from week-end to weekend. '

"Trouble has already arisen in Victoria in connection with the boy immigrants, who after all sorts of fair promises had been made to them in England found that they had to go to ud-country farms to havo the soul-cases sweated off them at ss. a week. These pseudo-philan-thropists may get a little credit when tho boys aro sent away, but it would be interesting to hear the story the boys would tell a month or two after their arrival. 'If the Arbitration Court was sympathetic, and if we had rather more stringent factory laws, and' if boy labour and apprenticeship were limited to a fair ratio, to tho number of journeymen, then perhaps tho ordinary .trades unionists would not resent tho further importation of boys to compete with them." Mr. Carey also expressed himself against State-aided immigration of domestic servants.