LABOR MARKET:

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1138, 2 January 1874, Page 3

LABOR MARKET:

["WESTPORT EVENING STAR.]

Tile scarcity of labor, everywhere prevailing throughout the agricultural districts, is causing apprehension that the unusually abundant grain harvest will be badly garnered. A high race of wages proves iiiisuffieicnt to command the needed number of hands, and men of very inferior calibre as laborers in the field become the masters of the situation. In Canterbury, whence a large proportion of supplies of produce reach the Coast, the question has become of so grave importance that the local press recommend the moderately sized army of workmen, in the pay of the ten or dozen little Provincial Governments, should, with the concurrence of contractors, and a mutual understanding between the Colonial Government and the Superintendents of the Provinces, be tokl off to assist ihe farmers to ingather their crops, and that for a time all public works now in progress should be suspended. Such an expedient it is argued, would afford immediate and sensible relief to (he farmers, and save

a large amount of property from probable destruction. It is also suggested that first-class working men might be induced to leave for awhile those portions of the goldfields where mining industry is, for the time, declining and take temporary service in the harvest fields. The first idea might possibly by feasible, always provided that the men themselves, whose services are needed, would consent to travel to and fro and work for new taskmasters. But as regnrds the so called roving

population of the Groldfields, there is no need for interference either by government or private agency. Men who cannot live on the diggings will quickly pack their swags and travel far and wide id search of labor, and,

it may be remarked, those who cannot live on the goldfields would not be found worth a heavy day's wage elsewhere. The situation is awkward, seeing that the bright ripening weather will cause grain of all descriptions to

be ready for the sickle about the same

time, and even twenty- four hours delay is 9 often fraught with disastrous loss. Possibly the New Zealand farmers may tide over the difficulty, but one thing is very apparent, neither General or Provincial Government authorities will hold out the slightest inducement to attract additional labor on public works until the season's harvest is gathered.