The Daily News. THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 1911. MORE WORKERS WANTED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 53, 24 August 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 1911. MORE WORKERS WANTED.

There is a big bid the world over for the beat workers,' for it is on the workers all 'countries depend. Curiously enough, it is. in countries that are air leged to be "workers' paradises'i that shortage in the supply of toilers for specific occupation is most pronounced, so thajt at the moment .there are notable shortages in many industries both in Australia and New Zealand, -where so! niuch has' been done to improve the, conditions.'of the workers. The annual report of the Department of Labor just issued shows that the number of girls and boys. available for what a British statesman has called "cul do sac" ployment is diminishing. There has been a decrease of 800 in New Zealand in the number of employees between the ages of 14 and 21 years during the year. The suggestion is, of course, not that this number, Of }-oung persons are idle, but that they seek an outlet for their energies in fields that offer them life employment. Few boys desire to undertake employment of a. trivial or unskilled kind in which they, in the opinion of their parents, waste time that ought to be given to the learning of their life work. With girls it is merely a matter of filling a gap before they marry, and as it is at present apparently as difficult to secure girls for factory work as it j is to secure them for domestic service, it is to be concluded that the overplus either, perform office tasks or remain at home. The Department's report, however, discloses a more serious situation —there are fewer boys offering for skilled trades. The tendency is unquestionably to send both boys and girls to office employment, and probably the tendency will continue until the clerk market is so overstocked that employment can with difficulty be found for all aspirants. The need for clerks is only created by the workers in skilled ana unskilled tasks, and the shortage of labor is of course a serious handicap to the progress of trade and commerce. While there are "jobs" available in which the supposed social advantages are greater than at factory or other "cul de.sac" employment, it is perfectly natural that children whose parents believe they are well educated should seek such occupation for them. It is not to be supposed that a girl or boy feeling herself or himself capable of undertaking routine office work should pine for the atmosphere of a factory, and the problem therefore is to find the type of young person who is aching to apply himself to the innumerable petty but vitally necessary tasks growing commerce imposes. Immigration offers the solution if- the necessary kind of young people are disposed to emigrate, but as manufacturers want only young labor emigration of sufficient young people from the Old Country or elsewhere means the breaking up of innumerable families. The emigration of whole families of workers is the most feasible idea, but here again the money didienlty is in most eases an insuperable one. It in largely a question of fare, and both Australia and New Zealand are so far away from the great centres of population 'that neither under present conditions of transit are likely to attract the desired class in such large numbers as Canada can so easily do. Although there is great discontent among many classes at Home, it must not be believed that all workers (even all factory workers) can better their positions by emigrating. In the meantime, neither Australia nor New Zealand can compel the people to undertake specific occupations, and although commissions may marshal facts they cannot marshal people. The domestic servant problem has its uses. We know all about the ladies who suggest "raising the tone and dignity of domestic service" and the teaching of "domestic economy" and all the Test of it, but girls who might undertake domestic service if they would are not .likely to become students in order to serve a mistress well between the time of ii«r

service and the time of their marriage, for—except in the Old Country, where j the servant caste has lost all ambition to do anything but menial tasks—few desire to be domestics for a lifetime. The servant girl shortage will in time effect the domestic alterations so necessary. The average house and its average inconveniences represent one of the severest forms of slavery so far as the housewife is concerned. Labor-saving appliances applied to domestic work have not until recent yeaTs occupied the attention of geniuses and inventors. The average house is overcrowded with unnecessary things, which are mere dust and microbe catchers. The "careful" housewife works harder than a navvy—and she has never finished. The slavery hired girls won't tackle. (and no sane person blames them) has to be undertaken by the married "domestic slave." The man wlio prides himself on applying labor-saving devices to his own business rarely attempts simplification of his wife's tasks. But he will have to tackle the problem sooner or later and remove for ever the painful methods of doing housework that came over with the Conqueror and never went back.