LABOR AT DARWIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 December 1919, Page 2

LABOR AT DARWIN.

WORSE THAN IN JAPAN* ENGLISH TRAVELLER'S OPINION. A distinctly unfavorable opinion of conditions in Darwin lias been formed by an English traveller, Mr. David Weir, who has just spent four days there. Mr. Weir says they were four days too long. He is on a world trip, which has included America, India, Japan, and part of China, and which will include New Zealand as well as Australia.

Mr. Weir had just been talking about Japan's industrial troubles, which he thinks are likely to develop until they are worse than those of any other country, except those in which there has been an actual revolution. "But, as regards labor, Darwin is in a worse position than Japan," said he. "The laborers run the whole place. It Is a serious matter. Take the wharf laborers. There was a passenger steamer lying at the wharf when I was there, which had to take meat on board. The loading had to be done at night, because of the climatic conditions. Well, on the first night they loaded about 20 tons! Another steamer belonging to the Meat Company, was three weeks, and when. I left was to be another 10 days loading her cargo. And there is no trimming. They just dump the meat down and let it trim itself. Nor is there any stevedoring. The old stevedore dare scarcely show his face, or they'd knock him off the wharf. They work there in squads, of which one lie's down and sleeps while the other loads, and at a certain time they knocked off and went up to town for a 'beano,' returning drunlc. Yet these men are paid a regular wage of £7 10s a week, with 17s 6d an hour for overtime!"

Mr. Weir has seen something of American, as well as Japanese, industrial and other troubles. The coat of living in Japan, he says, is higher to a foreigner than even in America. And wages are rising so fast that he considers the fears aa to the trade Japan may capture are not by any means wholly justified. At present, he says, Japan is turning out nearly a ship a day for America. Whether this will make much difference to America's trade depends, however, upon the overcoming of her industrial difficulties.