TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1911. A STAGGERING STATEMENT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1224, 5 September 1911, Page 6

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1911. A STAGGERING STATEMENT.

_ » . A statement has been published in London as having been issued by the High Commissioner for New Zealand of such an astounding character that we trust Parliament will take as much notice of ifc as it is certain to receive from the public. The Westminster Gazette of July 22 last prints the following extract from the statement, which it says was a long one: ■ "There is a great scarcity of efficient farm labour in this Dominion, nnd domestic servants are as difficult to procure us nuggets of gold. ]t is a standing complaint among fanners Hint whenever any busy time- comes efficient labour cannot bu obtniiK j (l for it. A first-class ploughman, an efficient stacker, or u man trained in all tho technique of the farm are exceedingly diflicult to procure, and are sent Home for. Wo rcquiro to import apprentices; they are not to Iks had. With that object in view we require to import plougbine.li and capable farm bands anxious to become settlers, so that production may not be handicapped; and wo require to import servant girls to save their mistresses nnd farmers' wives from tho eltcets of overwork, and give the dairy industry ll chance. We want population to eat 'up sonio of the beef and mutton und lamb that at present has to be sent to Great Britain. Wo want tho money newcomers bring with them and circuI late. We want settlers who will build

houses, buy furniture, blanket.*, clothes, and provisions-all of lliivo tvquire labour to product , and help to pay the interest on our inflated debt, which is mounting rapidly. We need another million people in tho cities and !wo millions on t lie land. We should welcome nil classes of agricultural servants and «>(- tiers. They are badly needed, and if the millions mentioned were here io-morrow there would be ample work and employment for all." We really do not feel quite competent to criticise fully this extraordinary fruit of the Prijie Minister's visit to England "We want population to eat up some of the beef and mutton and lamb that at present has to be exported." Good; but is not our Government set against immigration i "We want the money newcomers bring with them and circulate." Good again; but just fancy if Tue Dwiixiox had said that! "We want' , three million people, one million—let our Labour friends observe —for the cities ! And "if the millions mentioned were here, to-morrow there would he ample work and employment for all" ! On the spur of the moment we cannot think of what we should say about that climax. We can only sit and stare at the statement, and struggle back to normal by reading this passage in an editorial in the Lyitclton Times of Saturday last: 'file information that was placed before one of our reporters .yesterday with regard to the prevalence of unemployment in Christchtirch is of a rather startling character. A brief advertisement inviting men who had been unable lo secure work to communicate with a local resident produced some forty replies in two day?, and many of tho letters reveal a distressing condition of affairs. Workers with wives and children dependent upon them claim to have been brought face to face with absolute privation during the winter, and in some instances it is said that even now, when spring is Tin? 11 " 5 > there is ii shortage of the necessaries of life in tho home. The impression created by these letters is confirmed to some extent by tho fact that between two and three hundred applications for work have been received p.t the offices of tho City Council during the last few , months. Could there be a more damning commentary upon the results of lioomstsr "Liberalism" and the unabashed effrontery of the Government? We wonder what the unemployed in Christchurch think of the statement that if three million people arrived to-morrow they would all find work.