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Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 242, 6 July 1908, Page 8

Recently we referred to tho injurious effects to trade consequent 011 the undue' restrictions of the number of. apprentices (says the "Oamaru Mail"). ' We are now in a position to confirm what we then said as to the necessity of importing hands for certain industries to supply present necessities; and to increase the. number of apprentices allowed, and to insist upon their being properly taught. A firm of, tailors-in Oamaru having applied to the. Labour Department for hands, received the following reply:—"l am in receipt of your letter of tho 13th instant, forwarded through our Mr. O'Grady, in which you; ask me to advise whether any tailors or tailorcsses arrived recoutly from the Old Country. In reply I may say that the Corinfliio (which. landed hor passengers on Tuesday) did not bring any, and, thereforo, I ain not ablo to helpyou; 1 havo beon awaro for some, time of tho sliortago in this class of labour,, and other .employers havo l'nado similar -complaint. If you cannot got tho labour in the Dominion, no doubt, through your society, you will have to devise some means of getting them from Australia or from tho Old Country.—Yours faithfully, J. Lomas (for Secretary for Labour)." This is au indication of tho industrial condition throughout the wholo country at the present moment. Manufacturers are being hampered, not by high wages, but by the impossibility to get a sufficiency of hands to do their work. One would think that thero would bo no difficulty in attracting tailors and tailoresses from abroad, but they appear to be doing so weU in their own countries that they havo no dosiro for a chanpa