THE UNEMPLOYED.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 166, 15 July 1902, Page 2

THE UNEMPLOYED.

The. number of unemployed in Auckland seems to have been very much magnified at the meeting on Saturday night. In all 126 single men and 66 married men signed the list of unemployed prepared by Messrs Forster and Middlemass yesterday, most of the signatories describing themselves as miners and labourers. This list, when copied, will be forwarded to the Labour Department at Wellington by Mr H. Ferguson, local officer of the Department. In response to the request published in yesterday's issue for forty married men, on the books prior to this vveek, to proceed to the Main Trunk railway works, Mr Ferguson to-day received sixteen applications, these including men who had applied for work up to Saturday last. These men will be forwarded to the works on Friday morning next, and the list of application.? for men already on the works is now closed. Fresh applications lor work were received yesterday and to-day to the number of 59, 29 married and 30 single men applying, these including the signatories to the other list, all of whom could have applied had they desired to do so. A number of the married men are not supporting families in Auckland. As soon f.s Mr Louch, engineer in charge of the works, is ready to receive more men, the draft of forty will be completed from the fresh applications made by married men, there being, as already indicated, 29 applications for 24 vacancies- These 24 vacancies will doubtless absorb all the men now on the books willing to go to the KingCountry. Mr Ferguson yesterday issued five free railway passes to unmarried men who had secured private work in the country, three going to the new settlement at Kawhia, and two to Te Kuiti.