THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1891. BUREAU OF INDUSTRIES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2266, 13 October 1891, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1891. BUREAU OF INDUSTRIES.

When it was first mooted that the present Government intended to establish a Bureau of Industries, the wild screams of their opponents .would lead a stranger to believe that they were about to sell the country to some foreign power, and convert the present population into miserable belots. Then it was said they had robbed the Salvation Army of the scheme, that it was Colonel Taylor who suggested it, and that the Government were guilty of the meanness of having appropriated it. All this was untrue, but perhaps we may as well give a few words of explanation first of all. A Bureau of Industry is in simple language a Government Labor Agency. In all the centres the Government have appointed an officer whose business it is to collect information concerning the labor market. By this means he ascertains where employers in want of workmen are to be found, and when the unemployed apply to him he directs them where to go. One would think that there qould not be any great harm in such a thing, yet the establishment of this system .earned for' the Government unlimited abuse. As regards the charge that they robbed the Salvation Army of the scheme, we need only say that it was nothing new. A similar system was instituted by the Stout-Vogel Government, and it was was working very well, but the late Atkinson Government knocked it on the head. In reality, tbefore, the present Bureau of Industries is nothing more nor less than the reestablishment of the old plan, yet the Government are accused of robbing the Salvation Array of it. Colonel Taylor denied that the Goyernment had robbed him of his plan, but it was no use. The Christchurch Telegraph would not believe it, and insisted on painting the Govern-

ment in the moat objectionable colors The Bureau of Industries, however, is a great success, and is doing an immense amount of'.good throughout the colony. It is admitted On allh'andsnow that labor is very,scarce, but we hear of no monster unemployed meetings, and from all appearances there iB less want and destitution amongst the working men than there used to be. We do not say that anything which has been done by the Government has wrought this change, with the exception of the Bureau of Industry. That, judging by the information to hand, has done a great deal of good by supplying working men with information as to where employment may be obtained. But what surprises and astonishes us beyond expression is that there should be people who object to this system. As we have said the Atkinson Government destroyed the system, and when the present Government proposed to re-adopt it, a howl of indignation was raised by the Conservative newspapers, and Conservative orators, "The Government were pandering to working men, and consequently introducing grandmotherly legislation to please them," they said, but why should anyone object to it is more than we can understand. The late Government's plan was to let working men fish out work for themselves or get charitable aid, but why the wealthy classes should prefer giving charitable aid to settling the people properly on land or in employment, is an unexplainable mystery. The Bureau of .Industry, however, is doing good work, and it appears likely to be a permanent institution.