THE SHORTAGE OF LABOUR.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1695, 11 March 1913, Page 4

THE SHORTAGE OF LABOUR.

There were some points of interest in the evidence submitted to the Empire Trade Commission yesterday on the subject of the shortage of labour. No one appears now to dispute the fact that farm labour is so difficult to obtain everywhere in New Zealand that it is urgently desirable that the immigration of men and boys familiar with farm work should be encouraged and assisted. The real trouble in this connection seems to be that the supply is not available in the Mother Country from which we have in the past drawn our supplies. There is also a noticeable reluctance nowadays on the part of many people of standing in England to lend their approval to any policy of immigration which is at all likely to increase the flow of the better class of work-people to the overseas dominions. They aro ready enough, to empty the dwellers of the slums into outlying parts of the Empire, but, not unnaturally, they have come to view with some concern the steady exodus of so many of the best class of the working population from the United Kingdom. How faif the slum4wellers of the larger cities can be turned to useful account in the younger countries of the Empire has yet to be satisfactorily, tested here. It was made very clear at yesterday's sitting of the Empire Trade Commission that so far as New Zealand is concerned there is ample room at the present time for others than farm labourers. Mr. S. Ivirkcaldie was very positive in the evidence he gave on this point as affecting one branch 1 of his own firm's business— that of dressmaking and millinery work—and the officers of the Labour Department, who must be regarded as having special opportunities for forming a correct judgment on the subject, were equally emphatic in respect of other branches of labour. At the present time an investigation of the shortage of labour is being made by the Labour Department, and when the results of this inquiry are available the Government should find itself in possession of information of a sufficiently definite kind to enable it to approach the question with some confidence. That tlie matter is one calling for serious attention admits of no room for doubt.