THE UNEMPLOYED COMMITTEE.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13468, 7 July 1909, Page 8

THE UNEMPLOYED COMMITTEE.

The committee sot up by the Trades Council to deal with the unemployed question met at the Trades Hall last night. Present—Messrs A. D. Hart (in the chair), Cooke, Hunter, Littlecote-, Sulliran, Barr, and Ecroyd. A letter was received from the secretary of the General Unemployed Committee, requesting the Trades Councils committee, to take over the management of the whole movement. It was decided to accede to tho request. Messrs Barr and Hart reported tie results of their interviews with tho Tramway Board and the Drainage Board, and the reports were received. A letter was road from Messrs J. Fuller and Sons, Wellington, offering tho use of tho Opera Hotise free of charge, for the purpose of holding an entertainment for tho benefit of the unemployed of Chmfcchureh. It was decided to accept the offer with thanks, and to take steps to arrange an entertainment at an early date. It was decided that a general meeting of unemployed should be held in tho Trades Hall on the following Thursday evening, at eight o'clock, and that members of the Trades Council's committee should lay before the meeting a statement of tho steps taken to cope, with the situation. At tho Trades Hall about twenty workless men have, registered. Yesterday several carpenters a-nd painters gayo in their names, at the same time intimating that they were prepared to take any kind of work. Only on© employer has intimated that ho has work he wants done. The work consists of ten chains of goree-grubbing, and is to be let by contract. j A deputation from the Trades and Labour Council Unemployed Committee waited upon Mr E. Cuthbert, engineer of the Drainage Board, yesterday with the object of ascertaining when the Board's work would be likely to be put in hand. The deputation was the same as waited upon the Tramway Board on Monday—namely, Messrs A. Hart and tho Hon. J. Barr. Having put the case before Sir Cuthberb, they wero informed that the contracts were expected to bo fixed up in about a fortnight. It was expected, however, that it would be a month from now before men could be put on the work. This Mr Cuthbert thought should giv« employment to about fifty men. Sixteen out of nineteen men who were to havo gone to the Midland Railway works left yesterday for tho works between the Case and the Bealey.

fh© officer in charge of th© local office of the Labour Department has not yet received any further instructions as to sending more men to th© bushfolling contracts in the North Island.

At the Trades Hall a communication has been received from an employer at Scargill, who wants a good shinglefiller. He offers 9s per day and will provide a tent. Mr Darcy has selected a man for th© work from thoso on the lists at th© Trades Hall.

According to those who have opportunities of knowing, it is undoubted that a number of men hay© been coming in from the country districts during the past month, and hay© thus helped to swell th© numbers of the unemployed. It is anticipated, how r ever, that so soon as th© works to be undertaken by th© Tramway Board, the Drainage Board, and th© Selwyn County Council are put in hand, almost all th© workless will be absorbed. Tho difficulty experienced at present is to find work for tho men until the local bodies' work is ready. According to the Sumner Borough Council's Works Committee; two men who reside outside the district are employed by th© Council, and both possess special qualifications for the particular work on which they are engaged.