THE LABOR MARKET.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 52, 20 January 1872, Page 12

THE LABOR MARKET.

If anything were needed to prove the absolute necessity of using every possible means for securing a laige immigration in New Zealand, evidence could easily be adduced from the other Australasian colonies. Many persons may have held the idea that when once the railways and other public works in New Zealand were fairly started there would be no difficulty in obtaining labor from Australia. Y e have heaid this opinion expressed frequently by peisons whose position and general knowledge entitled them to some credit, but we find that just at the time when this colony needs a supply of such labor as was supposed to be superabundant in Victoria and the other colonies of Australia, the demand there foi this labor was never so great, and the supply so inadequate. For confirmation of this we refer our readers to that most reliable journal, the Melbourne “Argus,” a correspondent of which journal, writing from the Ballarat district, gives a most deplorable account of the condi tion of the farmers occasioned by the scarcity and high price of labor. He says “ With magnificent crops waving before them, the farmers see that there is a probability of their having to let them shed and be lost, as the prices demanded by the harvest hands would, in many cases, if paid, prove a more serious loss than the total loss of the crop.” And he mentions cases in which wages at the rate of £IOO a year and board were exacted. Nor was this all; for if the farmer gave way to pressure in respect to harvest hands, he had also to face a general demand from liis ordinary servants for an inciease of ten miles of Ballarat had to pay not less than £3 per week and board, or else allow his crops to rot on the ground. In the mining districts the scarcity of labor is equally felt. It is stated that “ the scarcity of men, but especially of miners, is retarding the development of the mining interest to a lamentable extent ” Mining companies “ tender in vain ” for workmen at wages that would realise from £3 to £5 per week. Every branch of industry is kept back and discouraged by the high price of labor ; “ the butchers, the fishmongers, the fruiterers, the vegetable dealers, and the venders of all perishable food are constantly complaining of the losses they sustain for the want of people to consume the produce they deal in.” r lhe foregoing remarks upon the labor market of Victoria would bear application to New Zealand. It is a fact that good labor cannot be had except at rates of wages utterly disproportionate to tlie value of the woik oi the cost of living. Only the othei day we had here, in Wellington, a strike amongst carpenters who were earning £3 pei week, in a place where the necessaries of life are little more than half the cost they are in England, and where the rate of payment for labor is three times as much as in the old country. The

same process is going on all over the colony. Common road laborers are getting ten shillings a day in Westland, and in Canterbury the farmers there have the melancholy prospect of seeing the profit they ought to obtain upon their crops put into the pockets of laborers who are not content with “ a fair day’s wage for a fair day s work, but taking advantage of the dearth of labor exact the uttermost shilling out of the pockets of the employers. The words of the “Argus” correspondent are worth reprinting, because they would apply with such great force to this colony. He remarks: “No wonder, then, that these mob tyrants are opposed to any immigration, when they can extort more wages in one harvest season than far better men can earn at home in twelve months. If the farmers throughout the colony, or even if a few in each district, would take the trouble to keep records during the present season of the rates of wages paid, of the extortionate demands made, and of the offers of wages refused, we should have an argument in favor of immigration that nothing could resist. The Government should either invite such returns to be sent in, or order the col lectors of agricultural statistics to include them in their next returns.” . . “ I repeat that there is a heavy responsibility, amounting almost to sinfulness, hanging over those who object to encourage the immigration of the poorer classes of Europe to this land of plenty. Immigration would be the soul of Victorian prosperity, but the soul is vamped out of the colony by a set of narrowminded, besotted panderers to vulgar prejudices.” Substitute the word “ New Zealand” for “Victoria” in the foregoing lines, and we have a faithful picture of the state of the labor market of this colony.