Boy Labour.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 16 June 1910, Page 4

Boy Labour.

THE PROPOSED IMPORTATION FOR FARMS. STRENUOUSLY OPPOSED BY A UNION. Tli Labour Department's proposals for the importation of boy labour are viewed with extreme disfavour by the representatives of till© Canterbury Farm Labourers' Union. Speaking to a Ohristchurch reporter, Mr Kennedy (secretary of the Union) strongly denounced the suggestion. He said that lie viewed the proposal with entire 'hostility. There was no scarcity of farm workers in New Zealand, and an employer who was willing to pay a reasonable Wage could got all the competent men he wanted. There was, however, undoubtedly a scarcity of the kind of labour required by some of the farmers regarding whom evidence was given at the hearing of the farm labourers' dispute. One of these men employed a lad from six or seven in the moritig till seve nor eight alt night, and paid him no wages beyond his food and while another employed a lad from six or seven in a team of horses, milking cows, feeding calves, and doing otliei work on his farm, the munificent wage of 2s a week and found. That class of employer would always be in want of boys. _ The union had been watdhing this movement' for the importation of labour from the Homeland for somo time.

The Farmers' Union had been talking about it, and had already imported a contingent of boys to Otago. It would be interesting to ascertain the conditions under wTridh those lads were employed. Judging by utterances made at a. recent meeting of the Farmers' Union, at Ashburton, this was a more in the direction of importing cheap labour in order to bring the conditions of the agricultural labourer im New Zealand down to the level of the miserable conditions whidh prevailed in England. When the farm labourers' dispute was before the- Arbitration Court, the judge admitted that cases of sweating had been proved, and as that judge had refused to make an award fixing a ■minimum wage, the Labourers' Union would strenuously oppose anything in the nature of the importation of cheap boy labour from England. Thoro were plenty of boys in New Zealand who would like to go to farms, but itliev were deterred by the wages and conditions offered by the majority of farmers.

Tt had been difficult to obtain evidence as to the conditions under which boys worked on farms, because the boys so employed were, as a general rule, the sons of men living in the same district as their employer, and -tiliey were frightened to give evidence lest they should prejudice the prospects of employment of both themselves and their fathers. Every married man who gave evidence for the union hud suffered for it. Tn many cases he had. been compelled to leave the district, and in others being unable to go away, had ha dto eke out a very miserable existence evor since. Whenever the matter of this threatened importation of labour from England had been discussed by the Farm Labourers' Union the res 11 lit had been to bring a large number of now members into the union ranks. Another aspect of the question of the importation of boy labour was suggested by the evidence given before the Arbitration Court as /to the sweating of hoys. Those bovs had parents in New Zealand to look after their interests, and if thev were so badly treated the prospect for the imported boys— strangers in a strange land—was indeed a poor one.

T ho proocl employer would certainly not desire these hoys, entirely untraiuocl ;is they were in ficjriciijtiir.il pursuits, when he could cot lads H'Shh' <a homo-trainirii' 011 ,a farm belli; ml them, but for one sort of employer the sugeosted type of boy would be • tho product of a city slum, with all spirit and independence knocked out of him. This kmd of lad would probably he sufficiently servile and nioan-spi'rited to put up wiith anv conditions: ''but " concluded Mr Kennedy, "God fieVp t-hein < if they are loft to the tender mercies of those mn,"