NEW ZEALAND AND FEDERATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 95, 23 April 1901, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND AND FEDERATION.

THE COLOURED LABOUR

QUESTION

AN INTERVIEW

BRISBANE, this day

Mr T. W. Leys, member of the New Zealand Federation Commission, has been interviewed here. Mr Leys said there was a fear in the minds of the New Zealand people that if New Zealand entered the Commonwealth special interests of that colony might not be sufficiently studied by the Federal Parliament, and. as a consequence, they might be hampered in the management of their own affairs, instancing the way in which the coloured labour question in Queensland had been discussed during the federal elections. He said a very important industry of special value to Queensland was being imperilled by a political cry raised in those States which had no interests at stake in connection with the employment of black labour. Whether such labour is necessary or not to the continuance and development of this industry life certainly did not think it had been considered judiciously, but had been made a party cry without enquiry as to whether the industry could be profitably carried on.without black labour. There was no feeling of hostility raised against the Maoris in New Zealand. Eventually, the. Commonwealth would have under its rule the islands of the Pacific, and he thought it a pity that any intense racial feeling should be raised to the injury of a race whose welfare the Commonwealth should have at heart.

The New Zealand Federal Commission yesterday interviewed the Acting-

Premier.