EDITORIAL.

Thames Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 10348, 22 April 1911, Page 4

EDITORIAL.

EMPLOYMENT IN AUSTRALIA.

"Australia has been called the paradise of the 'working' mlan," Mr Barbei', a member of the Scottish Agricultural Commission, which rocemtry visited! Australasia, told an. interviewer on his return: to Scotland. "His hours are short, and his. pay gt>od. The only tiring I regret at out it i 3 that employers of lalbour —not in the towns so much as in the country—are inollined to keep labouring men only at thos© times of the yeah.' w!h©n they ai Jo most wanted', and then dispense with them. It is, of course, different with us. We endeavour as far as possible to employ labour all the year round. Labour in Australia has, therefore, a tondeinciy to bo just seasonal. This system has an effect upon Wages. If you are going! to us© a man only for a fortnight or throe, weeks, j'ou have: to pay him mucih more pcr 1 day oi< per week •than you would if you g'avo him steiady worlt for an oxtendeid! term. The pi-ices ' paid for eight houlra labtmr in the towns/ are undoubtedly big. It is a singular fact that a greiat proportion of countrymen—waggoners and labourers — who go 1 out from this cioufntry, drift into the towns; whereas, a lob of the men on the sugar plantations and fruit fai-ms have been town 'birds at Hlomc. Many, perhaps, have gone* out for health reasons, and, having 1 got on tha land, are doing well. Countrymen somehowi do n;ot seem to tako kindly to rural conditions in Australia/