Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878.] WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 1894. THE LABOUR BUREAU.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4692, 11 April 1894, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878.] WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 1894. THE LABOUR BUREAU.

The Wairarapa County Council has been indulging in a little criticism on the Labour Journal, the official organ and mouthpiece of the Labour Bureau. We take the following extract from a report in our Greytown contemporary, which illustrates very forcibly the difficulties that are now to bo contended against in bringing men and work together;-

Cr Martin moved {hat the attentio: of the Government be called to the Mrgcnt necessity ot moio care being exorcised in the labour reports, afd that special mention bo made ot one instance in a recent report from Maryborough which stated the labour market was not over supplied, the oonsequence of which was the district had become flooded with unemployed. He Slid he did not know who the labour agent in this town was, The injury did not atop fherc for it was a great hardship to tho men to bo brought to an out-of-the-way-district and find nothing to do when thoy got there. The Clerk: Tho constable ot each district is tho agent and sends the reports, •Cr Matthews said he had never during tho past 30 years seen so many swaggers as he had seen lately at Wairongomai. The Chairman could quito endorse what the previous speakers had said. He could not understand how anyone with a knowledge oi the district could have sent such a misleading report. The district was quito ovcrdono with labourers, The motisn was duly seconded and carried. This concluded the business,

Can we wonder that Huangaroa and Wairongatuai.loaded as they probably are with penal taxation, object to a swarm of. unemployed coining into their neighbourhood, unemployed for whom they cannot find work, and ' must possibly provide n certain amount of food and shelter 1 Do they not probably .say to MrSeddon " You are bursting us up with taxes, but you have no right to billet a small army of swaggers upon us." At the snuio time is the constable to blamo who sends word 10 the Labour liureau tiiat Wairongamai and Huangaroa are not" over supplied " with labour. He does not say -that labourers are wanted or in demand, he merely states that the supply is not in exCOBB, This perhaps is the most cheerful-message that cornea to the Bureau from any quarter, and at once a flood of labour is li't > loose on the solitary spot, • which is reported to be free from congestion. Can we blame the Bureau, which has endeavoured to furnish a supply wherever a demand existed, if now that the demand id exhausted and the supply is increasing it is simply powerless to help the unemployed,. The persons most to be pitied are the poor fellows who have tramped up the Lower Valley expecting work and finding none. What is to be done with them? Virtually the Government has abolished private employers of labour in order to work out its own co-operative scheme, lv the co-operative policy is a sound one it ought to relieve all congestion in the labour market throughout the colony, but if it be an unsound one it must increase the congestion. This is what it is doing now! TheWairarapa County Council has sent a wordnf warning to the, Government, and it is time that local bodies spoke out on this subject. Country districts : [ are hot likely to tako kindly to the 'efforts of the Government to distribute amongst them the unemployed ehl^Wtowos,