AN UNEMPLOYED PETITION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9161, 7 August 1908, Page 5

AN UNEMPLOYED PETITION.

AND WHAT IT REVEALED,

By Telegraph—Press Association. WELLINGTON, August 6. The petition from the unemployed to the Premier has been considered by the Labour Department, and close j investigations made. In its report the Department says that there is considerable distress amjng carpenters and painters at present, though I many who signed the petition have since obtained employment. In regard to cooks and waiters appearing on the list, they are unfitted for hard manual labour, and are more or less out of work at any period of the year. Several men who signed were merely out of a job for a few days, as ordinarily happens in their particular trades. The Chief Inspector says that apparently the petition was signed in most cases on the pressure of tha persons who originated it. Indeed, one of the prime movers admitted that many of the signatories were not bona fide unemployed, while in several instances men who signed the petition had no intention of taking work if it was offered. The following are extracts showing the circumstances of some out of over a hundred cases investigated: Porter, single, New Zealander: Offered work by the Department, and refused job at Rongotta; most abusive, and police had to be telephoned for to quieten him. Hotel hand: Landlady states that he went away yesterday to get married. J.M.: Says when he wants work he can get it. Painter, single: Confidentially informed by his Union secretary that he is too fond of painting his nose to spend much time painting houses. Labourer, single: Been out three months; refused work on railway construction; used most abusive language when offered it by the Department's officers. Said to be in employment. Was one of the organisers uf the agitation. 11.5.: Gone to Napier for a holiday. C. W., labourer, married, sixty years of age, three sons working, does odd jobs cutting firewood, etc.: He was not anxious to start. Reckons it was time he was knocking off. Late proprietor of Hotel: Ho couldn't work if ho would. Labourer: Away from his lodgings at time of visit. Landlord volunteered the information that he'was v. man who spent a good deal of time in the neighbourhood of the Queen's Statute, implying that , he was not over fond of work.

CABLE NEWS.

United Association —By Electric Telegraph copyright.