FRENCH BILL TO REDUCE FOREIGN LABOUR.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 26 October 1901, Page 4

FRENCH BILL TO REDUCE FOREIGN LABOUR.

An Enactment to Restrict Aliens.

As soon as the French Parliament reassembles a bill will be brought forward designed to prevent the growing influx of foreign labourers into France. Certain restrictions on the subject already exist, but have not proved efficacious, since certain districts of the country, particularly the coal-mining regions and the manufacturing parts of Northern France, are threatened to be overrun by foreigners hailing from Central Europe, •who work at a cheaper wage, and also by English and. Belgian who are often exclusively employed in skilled labour.

Tb. 3 Labour Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, which ha 3 been working all the summer, has finally evolved a bill which the chairman of the committee, M. Haus3mann, means immediately to present to M. Waldeek-Rousseau.

According to the clauses of the bill, first of all foreign labourers are to be taxed at a sliding scale, according to the nature of the work. Second, employers will also bo forced to pay a tax of fifty centimes a day for each foreign labouras employed. Third, all labourers will be subject to strict registration and must agree not to work for a penny less than the French workmen, no matter what is the industry. Fourth, the number of f oreigneers muse no 1 ! excood ten percent of the whole number of the workmen in any given factory mine or shop. The eeatiments of the Chamber baforo the adjournment leaves no doubt that the provisions of the bill will meet with general approbation. Speaking recently, M. Haussmann said: —" The most important of these clauses, in my opinion, is that forbidding foreigners to take a smaller wage than Frenchmen. Attracted by the example of the large American employers of labor, a number of French capitalists have lately been importing labor to work the mines and railroads. This had to be nipped in the bud at once. Since the agricultural districts are slowly but surely proving unable to employ to a sufficient extent the native population a large portion of the latter are forced into industries. The ory, nevertheless, is continually coming that French laborers are pushed out by cheap imported labor. The present bill, if it becomes law, as it surely will, ought to be rigidly enforced, and will be if we are able to effect it."