LABOUR IN NEW ZEALAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8265, 19 October 1906, Page 5

LABOUR IN NEW ZEALAND.

Reoeived October 18, 9.10 a.m. LONDON, October 17. The president and secretary of the Canterbury Trades and Labour Gounoil, in a letter gto the Manchester Guardian, warn Englishmen against; going to New Zealand. The writer points out that the labour market is overstocked, and that a considerable number of artisans and labourers are idle, chiefly owingjto the inrush of British and Australian immigrants. (Mr J, Maokay, chief clerk of the' Labour Department, was seen by a Post representative, yesterday, regarding the above message. The experience of the Labour Department, he said, is this—that competent navvies, bushmen, roadrnakers, milkers and general farm bands are exceedingly diffioult to get in the colony. As a matter of faot, the Government, in order to get men for the North Island Trunk Railway works, is offering speoial concessions ,to men from other parts of the colony. As an illustration of lb* state Qf things experienced by the department, Mr Maokay stated that the steamer Suffolk landed yesterday morning soote carpenters from England, and there were four or five employers at the department's office seeking to engage them. Any competent carpenter, he added, can get work. "I have been asked for carpenters for various places, and could not get them. The Public Works De partment wanted carpenters at Nelson, to go on the railway works, and they could not be got. A man sent from Gisborne for a dozen carpenters, and we could only get a few to go. It follows as a natural consequence that when carpenteers are busy other branohes of the building trade must at least be fairly good. Then, again, painters were wanted at Peilding, six months' work guaranteed, wages at union rates, and 1 could only get two or three. Cabinetmakers and upholsterers are at a premium."