DEPRESSED TRADE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 226, 17 September 1908, Page 4

DEPRESSED TRADE.

MORE PAUPERS IN THE GREAT CITIES. GROWTH OF UNEMPLOYED. (London, July 2d. With the growth oi unemployment, as shown by the Board of Trade figures —8.2 per cent, of the members of trade unions, against il.li per cent, last year—there is an increase in the amount oi relief given by trade unions and by the Poor Law authorities.

The depression of trade at this season ij the more alarming, as it augurs worse for the winter. The following are reports from great centres: — Birmingham.—The jewellery trade, the staple manufacture of the city, lms been steadily declining for many months. Some of the smaller linns have been in dilliculties. Numbers of employees have been discharged. The iron and steel trade has suffered a serious relapse since Christmas; many furnaces have been extinguished, and most of those still working keep on their hands only three days a week. The wire trade is practically at a standstill. .Some tiO'll) men are out of employment, a large proportion being skilled artisans. In '.lie workhouse last week, however, there were only 1008, as compared with Kill last year. Manchester.—Councillor Fox, secretary of the .Manchester ami Salford Trad "s Council, estimates 15,0(10 people workloss in the two places, the trades affected being engineering, ironmouldiiig. and building, and cotton, to a less extent. The number of unemployed is higher than in any previous year.

Masgowv-Kinployment in the iron and housebuilding 'trades is the worst, for twenty years. The average decrease in wages is'lll per cent., and the miners' wages 25 per cent. Twenty thousand unemployed calls upon I'oor Law relief show an increase of 10 per cent, over last, year. Most works are closing for three weeks' summer holidays instead of the customary ten days. Liverpool.—Bisti'cs s among the wording classes is now acute. Slackness of Atlantic freight shipping has swollen the number of dock labourers unemployed. The principal workhouses have each from two to three hundred more inmates than last year. Sunderland.—ln shipbuilding only about ten per cent, are working. There were 1107 inmates in the workhouse on July Bth, as compared with 1174 last vea'r; 4139 are in receipt of out-relief, against 3408; 1854 are registered at the labour Ijureau, against 2311 last month, but the men are tired of registering, as jobs can be found for only a few.