THE AUCKLAND UNEMPLOYED

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 103, 1 May 1894, Page 5

THE AUCKLAND UNEMPLOYED

CO-OPERATIVE WORKS IN THE

NORTH.

GOVERNMENT ROAD - MAKING.

The Government having decided to start public roadworks on the co ■ operative system in the North Auckland districtpartly with a view to relieving the congested state of the kauri gum industryGovernment surveyors were yesterday despatched from Auckland to lay out the work on the Hokianga Road and the Herd's Point-Takahno Road. To istarb with, about twenty men will bo employed on each of the sections named. Yesterday and today numerous applications for work on fchoao works were made ab the local Labour Bureau. The principal work is on the new main road through the Hokianga county, from the head of the Kaihu Valley, at Opanake, to Hokianga, several miles of which road are yeD to be cleared and formed. This is the principal work, but there are also one or two by-roads on which the co-operative labour system will be pub into operation. Altogether, a considerable number of men should be given employment on these roads, and should the Government extend tho policy of ro»d-making in order to relieve the distress on the gumfielda in the North, no doubb the result will be of great benefit) to the gumdiggers and others during the coming winter. In this connection, it has been rumoured thab the Government intended importing about 35 men of tho unemployed of Christchurch to Auckland, in order to give them work on these Northern roads. There appears, however, to be no foundation for this report. THE LABOUR MARKET.

Mr H. Ferguson, the local official of the Government Labour Bureau, informs us that he has received a large number of applications for work on the new road formation jobs up North, and thab he haa a targe number of names of willing men down on his books aa being in want of work. There is more real want of work in Auckland, he cays, than is generally imagined, and he could supply at least a hundred men to-morrow if remunerative work offered. As to the gumdiggers, he considers from facts which have come to his knowledge that there is a good deal of distress amonget the diggers, owing to the depressed etate of the gum market, which could be remedied by giving the men work on the roads. As it is, many of the married diggers who have been sending money to their families in town, have come into Auckland from the gumfields, being unable to make a living, although the young and unmarried men nranage to make " tucker." He states that the men who have come to him for work are honesb arid willing hands, whose behaviour is a great contrast with the unemployed of Christchurch. The Auckland men are in hopes of getting Government work, and are only waiting for the Government to commence work which would give them a chance of earning money for themselves and bheir families. Mr Ferguson haa received no official intimation of any Christchurch unemployed coming up to Auckland.

MR REEVES' STATEMENT,

With reference to the above report the Hon. Mr Reaves informs us thab he knows nothing of the rumoured importation of Christchurch labour. ■ He thinks that it probably refers to the fact of a number of Canterbury unemployed boing drafted to work on pome road line or other. The unemployed in Christchurch, he further says, must necessarily be distributed elsewhere, because there ate no public works going on in Canterbury. Even if a few Canterbury unemployed were brought up hero, the proportion would not be more than, say, a dozen or so to every 240 or 250 of Auckland men. In any case, Mr Reeves assures us, the Auckland men can make their minds easy that that they will be quite safe, for the greater part of Auckland's public works during tho coming winter will certainly be reserved for Auckland men.