IMPORTED FARM LADS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 3, Issue 164, 23 January 1914, Page 2

IMPORTED FARM LADS.

" Labour " Again Butts In.

Explaining The Position.

A telegram from Wellington states that "the recently-formed Wellington I'ural Workers' Association decided, when it learned that a r.umber of farm workers were being brought out in the Ayrshire, to send a representative to Auckland to meet and explain the labour situation to them."

It appears that the Wellington Rural Workers' Association ia a farm labourers' union that waa formed after the recent strike. The promoters claimed, with a certain amount of cynical humour, that they were forming the union in the interests of the farmers, since the farmers had evinced such a keen interest in tec Arbitration Act. Mr M. Laracy, of Wellington, ia secretary to the new farm labourers' union, which, it was expected, was to have been registered yeatcrday with headquarters at Masterton,

Mr k. Mcßac, acting as representative of this union, took an opportunity on Tuesday of interviewing the boy immigrants who had arrived by the Ayrshire,/and he wired to Wellington last night that he h.id "explainer the position

fully to thini.' The union, it stoma, has undertaken \o find poiitions for th 3 immigranti at £1 6» per \v;ck, and In keep them until positions arc lutmd, or to pay tbeir

passages Home. The movement is admittedly in attempt by the union to prevent farm labour being introduced into the country, as thetc set ma to be some doubt whether there is lesia* lation by which boys may legally be indentured. As a matter cf fact the Minister in charge of the Immigration Department (Hon. H. I>. Bell) and the Undei Secretary lor Immigration (Captain Eman Smith), have explained quite rleaily that there ia no otligation whatever, other than a moral obligation, on these Ayrshire boys to fulfil the agreement undei which ihey came to New Zealand. Ihe lads themselves were told this yesterday, but it is not thought (in spite of Mr McKac's report) that any one of them will do other than take the course he undertook to lollow when his fare was advanced to him in England.

In any case, it. has been pointed out, the ends of the Immigration Department will he admirably served if the farm labourers' union undertakes to find work at £1 and mora a week for all immigrants. It simply means that the Department will get its 7s 6d and the worker will get the rest.