Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, AUG. 9, 1898. The Employment of Labour.

Manawatu Herald, 9 August 1898, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, AUG. 9, 1898. The Employment of Labour.

The meeting to be held in the Public Hall to night is convened for the purpose, curious as it may seem, to impress upon a Liberal Government ! the importance it is to a colony to i encourage the employment of labour in preference to turning men away to give place to sheep and cattle. If the conservatives were a3 bad as the Liberal Party would have v? believe them to be, they might; hav^ bepn accu-ipd nf having been incliued to show lukewarmneas in this matter of the employment of labour in preterence to tne rearing of stock, but wa have not a conservative Ministry, but have ono that professes above everything to be on the side of the poor working mnn. We do not pretend to say that Foxton is the only place from which hemp has been exported for the last few years, but as in 1896 there were only 2999 j ton 3 produced we can claim to have ' produced the fourth of the quantity, and employed more than a fourth of the labour, as the other mill 3do nol turn out the weekly average as outlocal mills do, or employ as many hands per mill. The importance, of this agitation thus becomes increased, a3 unless the green flax is conserved from destruction the low rate of pro duction will be reduced by onfourth, a mistake both for the colony and district. The request to con serve the flax on the Motoa estate is not made in any speculative spirit where the owners are to receive the lo3ses and the millets the profits, as practically there is no risk to be run by the owner of the green flax, as the millers in thiß town have purchased the flax regularly, year after year, when the price received for thp dressed fibre has not exceeded £9 per ton. The price has never fallen lower in value than the last men tioned sum, and thus why should the owners of the Motoa estate bo> rli9tni3iful as to selling it? We have shown in a previous article that at the lowest tithe *he millers have ever paid for green flax, it has equalled in value twelve and a half per cent interest on a capital value of £8 per acre. How. much better profit is obtained by the estate on working it with stock ? If they obtain more than this sum then there is one asset the colony possesses through the Assets Company which should be easily sold at a capital piv-fio on its book value. We, how* vr-ry much doubt whether the '■state pays as much interest as this on ilia capital valua of the property mil stock, and it thus appeai'3 a most unnfcpssa'y act to destroy the flax which gives employment to nvn, simply to graze stock from which a less percentage is to be obtainpd than by selling the green flax. If this estate was not practically public property v;e should be adverse to appealing to the Government to straighten maters up, but as it is wo have no hesitation in so doing. No one desires to blame the Manager nf the Assets Company, he was appointed for the purpose of developing the properties placed in his charge so that they could be sold without a loss, and thus from him we cannot expect sympathy or sentiment, in fact nothing but that which lip believes will swoll the coffers of thp concern he is in charge of. From the Government the worker is en titled to much more, and when it is shown that the valuation of an estate, the valuation on which local rates are raised, is only such a sura that the lowest tithe the millers are willing to pay will yield a percentage of 12£ per cent, then it is not nn reasonable to ask the Government to acquire this land and retain it for flax-milling purposes. This is what the meeting means to do to-night. We desire to draw our readers attention to the one point above all others it is so necessary to bear in mind when discussing the flax industry, it is this, the exceedingly largp proportion of labour employed to the value of the production, thus making the industry such a peculiarly valu able one for working men. In the Official Year Book for 1897 there is tabulated the principal industries of the colony, some 55, and bad as the times have been for flax-miming it i" an eye opener to find that flax* mill 3 are the ninth in the list in th j employment of labour. The first in the list, Clothing and boat and sho? factories employ 4,407 hands ; sawmills, sash and door factories, 4,056 ; printing establishment, 2,851 ; meatfreezing, preserving and boilingdown works, 2,087 ; iron and brass foundries boiler-makiner, machinists, an 3 millwrights, 1642 ; tanning, fell-mongering, and wool-scouring establishments, 1629 ; woollen mills, 1416 ; coachVinilriinor and punting wnvkd, 807; flixmilK 647. Then follow three industries having ove 500 bands, four over 400, one OTee

300, four over 200, twelve over 100, seventeen over 50, and five over 20. The total value of produce of these indu tries is also given and they will further strikingly illustrate our point that far employment of labour there is nc industry to come near to the flax milling business. We find in the Meat Freozing business one hand was rmpioyed to every £811 of production, the Fellmongery business emp' iyed one hand for every £759 produced ; the Sawmills one hand for every £221 ; the Foundries, one hand for every £184 ; the Clothing, one hand for every £189 ; Printing, one hand for every £122; the Woollen mills, one band for every £218 ; but the Flaxmills employed one hand for every £50 produepd. Even in the best year that of 1890 the Flazmills employed one hand for every £78 produced, yet we find that the general average of all the industries gives only one hand for every £348 of production. Thus if indus* tries are of a value to the colony for providing employment to our labourers, the statistic? in the Official Year Book show conclusively that none can approach the Flaxmilling industry as a means to the end desired, and thus, not only to this district, but to the Colony at large, assistance to this industry in every shape that it can be given is of paramount importance, and the meeting this night emerges from local importance to one the outcome of which will materially affect the wall being of the whole Flax trade of the Colony.