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Wairoa Bell, Volume IV, Issue 153, 8 July 1892, Page 4

The establishment of Labour Bureaux by the present Government has been a step in the right direction and we arc pleased to learn that so far at least they have been very successfully worked and at a comparatively trifling cost. The vote placed on the Estimates for the maintenance of these bureaux for the current year only amounts to £1,500, and if these institutions caa be efficiently worked at such a small cost the opponents of the present Government will have but poor success in assailing this plank of the Liberal platform. There ‘ are some who urge that it is no part of the duty of a Government to find work for the unemployed and who are opposed te the establishment of Labour Bureaux but these we are glad to know are in the minority. Government exists to control, manage and direct the affairs of the nation and as all concerns are dependent for success upon the labour devoted to them so too the prosperity of a nation is largely dependent upon the labour of its people, and a government that will see to the keeping of its workers busy in the best directions is one that has the true interests of the nation at heart. The proper carrying out of this work cannot he effected without the establishment of some such offices as the present Labour bureaux and we hope the Government will do all in their power to make these offices as complete as possible. The officer in charge should have a thorough knowledge of the labour markets in the different parts of the colony and te always in a position to direct labourers to profitable employment. We have had many men in our young colony ready to work but knowing of nothing to do. Surely no one will say that such a state of things is inevitable, for all around, the country is being held in check, as it were, for want of more labour. We do not ?urge the importation of outside labour to push the inlying resources of the country but we do ask that all these of our population able to work shall be kept busy and not have to remain idle for lack of opportunities for work. The Knights of Labour were the first in Auckland to open a labour bureau and to urge upon the Government to take up the work, and steadily and surely many of the reforms contended for by that organisation are being introduced.

It is easy for a Ministry to continue almost in old groves and move but tardily in the way of reform, and Mr Ballance and his colleagues are all the more worthy of support for the decided steps in advance which they have made. They hare shown honesty of purpose in their administration and so far the affairs of the country hare fared well in their hands in spite of the strong outcry of the representatives of wealth who urge that the policy now pursued wili