EMPIRE TRADE.

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

EMPIRE TRADE.

I ■■ ■; ! /r —' ■ : DOMINIONS COMMISSION. i!. . j LABOUR SHORTAGE. j.. -. .... .... . - THE MANUFACTURERS' LOT. j "SOMEWHAT UNHAPPY." L . „,[The .Empire Trade Commission con-[-tiftucd., its-sitting's-yesterday. Sir Edgar | Vincent .presided. ; "Mf.' Sidney Kirkcaldie, bead of. the | 'firpi.of 'Iyrkcaldio and Stains, Ltd., gave ; evidence; He said that for years past his ; firm had found it almost 'impossible to, j get an adequate suppjy. of dressmakers, I- , ' milliners, and tailoresses. .At present, ; under. the', factory law, a girl of 15 years of age . ,had to be paid ss. .per week, receiving;iriysuccessive, years increments of - Ssl.'per' weck'.' The rosult was that much of'tlie manufactured goods had to lie imported, instead of being made on the prei mises; Iri the last two years especially j' this had been so. .Since- then only farm !' workers arid domestic servants had been [ . . assisted -to..this country.. He suggested i .(hat-, dressmakers; milliners, and tailor- | ' esses, who had learned their business at ; ■ Home,..should be given assisted passages i : or brought out as immigrants. He coni . templated putting, this suggestion before the Government this. year.

In reply to questioners he said that lie. thought it would be possible to get labour of . these classes froni Home.-Per-sonally lie could offer employment to 50 ■ such employees; at wages which would Tange from 30s. .to 355. per week for competent hands." - i Mr. „ Bbwring:; I'mafraid you would - find' it difficult to get , such , labour now. In England there are factories to-day.suf-fering. from the lack* of such labour as you refer to. To'Mri' Tatlow: Dressmakers did not live on the premises. , They v worked 18 hours, per Week. Mr.'Tatlow: Do you represent a retail drapers'.' association ?, ■Mr. Kirkcaldie:' There,'is an association • here; but'l am speaking personally. Mr. Tatlow: Have yoii done' anything as an association-'to remedy this? .... 'Mr. Kirkcaldie: We intend to do so next, year. ' ' " To'Mr; Campbell: He believed 1500. or 1600 competent dressmakers, milliners, and tailoresses could be absorbed in New Zealand every: year. He ; did. not-attri-bute .the present, shortagfe to .factory legislation, and. he thought the wages and conditions of v;ork .very good. '' The Sedgwick Boys. - • Mr. John Lomas', Secretary' for Labour, speaking: of. the fifty "Sedgwick-'boys" who .wera-brought out to New Zealand, said that only, seven had turned out un- , satisfactory.":. The .others had been,quite a success. . There 1 had been solitary" instances where employers had riot been as kind as th'ey might have been. I Three of the lads had already reached their majority, and' were now free to do as they pleased. '< Witness-explained how the lads' wages are banked and" how they are cared for officially by the Department (on the lines .-of the- report presented to Parliament last year).- He said'that it had to be remembered that the lads were taken from large cities at. Home, and naturally chafed under the conditions in the backblocks. Still, on the whole, the experiment had, been very satisfactory. As far as lie. kneir the, majority of the lads came from, the artisan class. '" • Sir Edgar '.Vincent : Has the success of the experiment been such that you would advocate bringing out another -batch? . Jlr. Lpmas: Yes;-but the selecting would have to be very carefully done. To Mr. Tatlow: The experiment had had the . result that other members'of these boys' families had come out t'o'New Zealand. For instance,, one of the -boy's had brought'out two of liis sisters.,. In reply/to other members of the Comsaid that-the. conduct of the bovs on'the .ivliole'.wiis about: as good as 1 hat of the average New Zealand boy. 11l a little over a year the Sedgwick boys had, saved some jaofifl. In his opinion the scheme had been a triumphant succ?.ss. On the arrival of immigrant boats the,, D.' lartment sent two officers on to th-'a boats'to meet new arrivals. The Department, however, had nothing to do with the housing of immigrants. He thought it would-be an advantage, to have a home where a female "immigrant, not satisfied with her employment, could go until sho received another engagement, but such an institution-would be expensive. He ex-plained-generally .the working/ oft the ■labour exchanges'. . ... To Sir Rider Haggard: He had no idea what amount of 'labour could be absorbed on the land, but it'was'certainly a largo amount.-- -He could not say whether it would run into .thousands of hands. -To Sir Alfred Batcmari: .He thought it would be an advantage to link' up our labour exchanges with those of the Motherland. To Mr. Garnett: No attempt was made, tp link up with Australia 'and elsewhere lor the pur-pose of mutually supplying information as to tho state of' tile labour, market, and of finding employment for Workers in'different countries.;. .-. To Sir Edgar Vincent: The question of linking up with Australian mid London labour exchanges had been discussed, but nothing more had been done. So far as lie knew, no objections.to the scheme had been formulated.' .'• • • '.: , To Sir Alfred Bateman: In all prob- '- ability . labour, unions here might object " to men coming out .. from England who had ~no .employment to comc to. , But he 1 thought there might lie,' objections from -the unions whether the' worker's had employment to'conie to or not.' . Demand for Operatives. Mr. John W. Collins, also of. the Labour Department, said- he had recently btcn conducting an inquiry' throughout New Zealand as to the shortage of . labour, and the amount required by employers to malio their staffing; normal. This, inquiry was about two-thirds through, lie had "found very great shortages in all . industries, especially in all -those trades connected with the manufacture of clothing. Tile shortage was mtfst marked in the 1-sady-made trade. There was a : large unsatisfied demand for skjjlcd dressmakers, cabinetmaker?, and skilled arid unskilled workers in the boot trade.

To Sir Alfred Batema.n: The demand for what wore called "chart" suits was increasing from year to year, and the out-, put could b; increased if woi-kers; were available. •• •• To Mr. Sinclair: If all present demands for labour were satisfied there was risk of under-emptayment hereafter in some, trades, and this was especially .so in the tailoring trades. .To Mr. Tatlo\v:'Tlie trades unions did not admit the correctness,,ofers''figures, and he had sought to-taks' a middle line in making his "cßiiipiitation/: There .was a much greater shortage of wo-* men than of men workers, and' tho-' demand for boys was very strong, t ' . To Mr. Garnett: Manufacturorshnd. had frequently to turn down orders,-'because they could not find hands to fulfil tlieniV' Sir Rider Haggard: Does not this state of things make/ the lot of the New Zealand manufacturer a somewhat unhappy one? Mr. Collins: Yes, it does. And another mibjcct of complaint was the unsatisfactory obtained from their hands. This is especially marked in Tespect of junior labour. Boys and girls might turn up on Monday and not on Tuesday. They don't oome to work regularly. In some factories I found that as much as -10 per cent, of the junior hands did not turn up to work regularly/ and did not give satisfactory work for the period of the lost three months. Sir Rider' Haggard: Does this state, of affairs threaten .the position of. New Zealand manufacturers? Mr. Collins: It does. Sir Rider Haggard: So that in five or ten years you cannot say' in what state New' Zealand manufacturers will be? : Mr. Collins: It is impossible to say. Our Water Power. Mr. Evan Parry, electrical engineer to the New Zealand Go verb mSnt;,. made a statement on tho water-power resources Af'the Dominion, in Ihe'coursb of which lie said:— / : "As regards the extent of the water power resources of New, Zealand, this;has fjoen' dealt with by-the-late- Mr.'. P. S.Hay in an. able report of which the. Commission has a copy. The. estimate there given is .1,700,(KM) horse, power. If. however, a limit be set to the cost of deyel-

I opmcnt, which should not be exceeded as a general rule for economical reasons, this maximum would be somewhat' reduced. Considering only those sources of power which need to be developed to satisfy present requirements of the community the capital cost of development is remarkably low .and is due to the following reasons: "ll The use of State security in raising capital. "2. The physical features of tho country which provide natural storage and enable the power to lie developed at remarkably low costs even lor small amounts of power. "3. The existence of a fully organised department for carrying out the work. "Over against these advantages there are the disadvantages that the population is sparse and only totalling 1,000,000 people altogether,' consequently the power demand is scattered and is small in the aggregate. As regards the price to the power user it is believed that in spite or the disadvantages, mentioned that power can be supplied in general at rates lower than any in the world and will probably not exceed on the average -L'.'i 10s. per horse power per annum when fully developed, depending upon the magnitude of the undertaking and the diversity amongst users. Tho prices previously mentioned are average prices to largo and small users scattered over a large area-and as such are very low,' and due to the facts already mentioned. At the price mentioned there is no doubt that all the industries and ultimately all the railways throughout the Dominion will bs worked electrically. A .beginning has been made by developing a source of power at Lake Coleridge for supplying power to Christchurch and throughout the Canterbury province generally. -.The head works are now in course of construction and tho plant is on order.

"The tariff for a supply from Lake Colif t 6 has for the present.been fixed on the basis of c£6 9s. per h.p. per annum tor all power up to 100 li.p., and .£3 14s. 7d. per h.p. per annum* for all in excels so that; for large powers the charges approximate i! 3 1-ls. 7d. per ', p * „P er annum. This is a very low figure.' especially so - considering the comparatively small amount of power developed and compares favourably with the prices of the Ontario Hydro-elec-tric Commission. who are working on a much larger scale.

Tho Men on the Land. Clifton, Director of Experimental i arms, submitted himself lor examination.

,In answer to Sir Rider Haggard, he said that farmers had not availed themselves or the experiments at the farms to any great extent. They were beginning to p S ?i noU '* ' had not made full use 1 it , farms 501110 y°ars because land had been rising for some years so rapidly that fanners had been -more anxious to make money by selling land than by . using it. To a great extent larmers had become land speculators. Even at the high prices ruling/ the best lands were payable for farming. The lands were exceedingly < fertile, and they were used for stock-keeping mainly.This did not entail the employment of much -labour, and stock could be kept very much more cheaply-than in England. -The lands held now some of their virgin fertility, but inevitably there \votild come a time when the lands would lose this fertility to some extent. This was being realised in some of the lighter lands. The Ne.w Zealand farmer : was mainly a grazier, but generally the land of New Zealand was being fairly well farcied. There was a distinct set from the country to the towns in New , Zealand, and this flow .' of -population out of the country districts was a serious source of trouble to the agriculturist. A man had more amenities in the town, and he'could get' higher wages, and probably more regular work in town. One of the reasons operating to bring about the drift to the towns was that no sufficient accommodation for men was provided by farmers. No cottages wore built for men, and when farm labotfrers married they often cams to town. As a rule, the acthe farms was limited and indifferent, and there was no provision as a rule for married'men. This shortage' of farm labour- in the country led to the laying down of land in grass, rather than keeping it in cultivation, and hampered' development. This matter of ijnproving the land was one of paramount importance. :It was proposed now that something should be done ,to build workers' homes in farming districts. To Mr. Sinclair: He had known many farmers to sell good farms with good 1 homesteads simply because they could not get labour. " ' ■

To Sir Alfred Bateman: Very few farmers'kept accounts; they mostly .relied on their agents or their bank to give them their, annual balance^ To 'Mr. Tatlow: On limited areas dairying was by'far the m6st' profitable form of farming. . v To Mr. Garr.ett: -No doubt to some extent work on farms was 'unpopular because there was certain necessary work, such'as attending to stock, to be done on Sundays. To Sir Edgar Vincent: The New Zealand farmer' was liberal and intelligent' in fhe'uss'of fertilisers. In this he was assisted by the Agricultural' Department, but also very'largely by tliie chief importers arid manufacturers'of fertilisers. ' f The: Commission resumes at 10 o'clock "-th'is morning. ■ • ■ * > •