DEARTH OF WORKERS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1605, 23 November 1912, Page 6

DEARTH OF WORKERS.

, * — IN THE CLOTHING TRADE. A CRIPPLED INDUSTRY, f< Wo aro always-in tliat oondition. There is a permanent shortage here, both in mill hands,.and in women workers for Hie clothing manufacture trade," said Mr. A. E. Donne, secretary of the Wellington Woollen Company, yesterday, in conversation. with a Dominion reporter. , "Here we are iu a position to handle tlio wool from the sheep's backs and to make it marketable, and we can't do it because we aro short of workers. In tho mill we want women, weavers and boys and girls, and to-day we could take on about thirty hands without extending our premises. We can't extend' because we can't got hands, and now we are at our wits' end to fulfil our orders. So far as wo can learn from annual reports, and from chairmen's addresses to shareholders, all other companies in other parts of New Zealand are in much the same fix. Here, in the clothing factory, we would bo very glad to got 50 machinists; we have room for them, but we can't get them. We could extend our busin , oss. at: the mill and in the factory very considerably if hands were available. With the orders we have on hand wo could run a double shift for six months if we could get the workers. Now we are working as many late nights in the factory as the Labour Department'will allow. "It would Tequiro a good deal greater I production tlian -wo can commaiid to drive the imported ready-to-wear goods out of tlio market, but as a matter of fact retailers are now taking a good deal of the local stuff because they find it superior. I believe that they find it more convenient to represent our stuff as English in order to persuade customers to buy it. Lots of the alleged English-stuff that is sold comes from New Zealand factories—not only ours. "No,'the workers we want are not to be badly paid. The award provides for a minimum of 255. per week for girls in. the clothing factory, but we have girls earning 3Gs. every week of the year. Boys? You can't get them in Wellington. We have had an advertisement standing tor a boy to run light errands, and not 'had a single application. And ,the scarcity of women workers is so 6erious hero that we have had to open a factory in Christchurch— simply to get labour there. Decentralisation, does.not suit us, but we'have to use labour where we can Jfr. Donne stated also that New Zealand mills could not get into tho tweed and cloth trades, owing to the prejudice of the community. The best bespoke tailors claim that they'are English,_ dealing in English goods and fashions. : New Zealand stuffs, good as they arc, find no sale, and if these are sold,at all; they are mostly sold as English. Very few people want locally-manufactured goods. To relieve' the difficulty now felt by manufacturers Mr. Donne 6aid he could suggest nothing except, the encouragement of immigration. Companies could not import hands finder contract, because contracts were not enforceable against young women. But if the Government would bring the people out, the woollen companies in New Zealand could find work for a very large 'number of them.