APPRENTICES.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9886, 17 November 1897, Page 3

APPRENTICES.

TO TITS EDITOR OF THE PRESS.

Sir, —I venture to assert that the great majority of the fathers and mothers of this colony have not yet realised the effect of the gross selfishness of the various Trades Unions in the question of apprentices and the proposed legislation of ou*; "Liberal Government" (heaven pardon the expression) in this same direction. The most pungent satire on the question was recently supplied by the Cabinetmakers' Union at the recent sitting of the Arbitration Court in Wellington. The firat five witnesses called by the Union were all foreigners —Germans and Poles. These are the men brought forward to dictate to the parents of New Zealand boys how many of them shall be permitted to learn trades. . How long will /the people of Now Zealand stand this? Is it supposed for a moment that by preventing our own youths from learning trades that a larger quantity ot work will accrue to the adults nere today ? Oh, ye fools, do ye not know that if men are wanted they can and will come here from all parts of the world and fill up the workshops that should be occupied by ourown children ? One does not expect anything from the Government. They have not, apparently, the backbone to assert even ordinary common sense, but are toadying all the time to labour organisations, not with any idea of even doing good to these organisations or to the men connected with them, but because they think it means votes to help them retain their fat billets.

The Unions are ringing the funeral bells for their own children, and in the course of a few years (judging from the evidence offered by the Union in Wellington) we shall probably have forgotten the expression "made in Germany," and Bhall have substituted " made by foreigners in New Zealand,'' while our own boys are perishing on the Klondyke or in Western Australia.— Yours, Ac,

New Zkalakdik. Christchurch, November 16th, 1897.