Many Ways Of Earning Our Bread And Butter

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 65, 9 December 1938, Page 5 (Supplement)

Many Ways Of Earning Our Bread And Butter

New Zealanders Have A Wide Diversity Of Interests

IF ever they give New Zealand a thought, no doubt the uninformed people of other countries regard New Zealand as a land of farmers and Natives. That this is so is indicated by the attitudes of of many tourists and visitors to the Dominion. Such folk would doubtless be surprised to hear that only one New Zealander in 10 is a farmer, that only one in a score is a Maori, and that more than half the entire population lives in the cities and towns. It is very true that one half of the world is unaware how the other half lives. It is interesting to study the composition of the population, and see just how the people of New Zealand earn their daily bread and butter, and how relatively widely diversified are

their interests. The ancient profession Of wife is by far the most popular; it is extraordinary to notice that less than half the population spends its time carrying the burden of the whole community, and that the numbers of those engaged in money-making professions are infinitesimal compared with the great host of those dependent for their livelihood upon the endeavours of others. Take at random a hundred New Zealanders —spectators at a football match, say, or passers-by in a city street. If you have happened to cut anything like a true section across the populace, your group will probably be made up more or Jess as follows-

Primary producers: Six dairy-farm-ers, two of whom are Maoris and one a woman share-milker; three sheep-farm-ers ; a fruit-grower or tobacco planter, and a wheat-farmer; a sawmiller, fisherman, or opossum-trapper; and a gold prospector or coal miner. Industrialists: A tailor or miller, a girl from a hosiery factory and another from a shirt factory; an engineer and a motor mechanic; a gasworks or hydroelectric expert; a refrigerator and a cheese-factory hand; a printer or Journalist; a confectioner, a cobbler; a miller or furniture maker or woollen weaver. A builder and a navvy. Communication officers: A railway, a service-car driver, an airways pilot, a seaman; a wireless operator or telegraphist. Commerce and trade: A banker; a draper and a woman costumiere; a grocer; an insurance agent, and two commercial travellers.

Administration and social organisation : A policeman; a clergyman or social worker; a lawyer or a doctor, a nurse; a schoolmaster or mistress or librarian or town clerk or civil servant. An actor; a housemaid or a waiter, a publican, and a cool<. Two unemployed ■ labourers, one of them a Maori.

Dependants: Twenty-three wives, 22 children, two of the former and one of the latter belonging to the Native race. Two spinster women, one of them a landlady. Two elderly retired men, and a pensioner. Of course, your section of the populace, consisting only of a very small-scale representation of the population, will not be exact; but it will very closely represent the composition of the nation as a whole. To go into the thing in greater detail, and with greater exactitude: — Some Statistics The entire population .numbers .D 601.758 of whom 813,104 are men, 788.654 women. There are 82,300 Maoris. As has been remarked, there are more people in .New Zealand doing nothing than in all the professions and occupations put together. By doing nothing, it is toeant that they take no part in any gainful occupation. Many of them more than earn their keep, being wives and mothers, and the majority of the remainder elderly retired people or young children. I'hcsv persons rd no {■ailing number 844.600. more

than half the population. Women comprise the greater proportion of them: there are 595,864 women, 248,700 men. These figures mean that fewer than half the people of New Zealand support the rest of the population, and the cost of government. The actual number of persons dependent upon others for their support is 771,000; retired persons, pensioners, and those of independent means number only 73,500.

Farmers and farm workers as a group contribute most, perhaps, to the prosperity of the Dominion. They form the largest occupational group, and with other primary producers make up .27 per cent, of the populace.

There are 152,400 of them. Women number 6200, of whom more than half are on dairy farms, the rest mostly sheep-farmers or orchard hands. Today the dairy-farmers number 75,000. and there are two of them to every sheepman. So times have changed in tire course of half a century.

Fishermen and trappers number 2793 men and one woman. Who she is or what she does the cold official statistics do not reveal —a hardy Diana who earns her living catching opossums or rabbits, or a fisherlass of the motor-launches, facing the hardship and peril of the sea. Sawmillcrs, foresters, and others who make thier living from the bush total 5250. Miners and quarry - men number 1 1.400, an increase of 3000 over the previous census.

'The industrial population comprises more than 24 per cent, of the community. It has increased by 20,000 in .10 years, and stands today tit 105,360, the highest figure it lias yet reached. The clothing trades are the biggest branch of factory industry. There arc 7000 men. 16,500 women engaged in making garments and dress materials in this Dominion. Next come the engineering, motor, and electric trades with 11,000 workers, meat freezing and preserving will.' 9000. and printing and publishing with a similar figure. Building and construction occupy 46,400 men, of whom 18,500 are engaged in road and railway construction. Transport and communication bv land, sea, and air occupies (>O,OOO, a big group. Gas, water, and electricity supply occupies 5500. Of the people of the cities, the ‘■'white-collar brigade," there are close on 100.000 engaged in enm-

mercial and financial businesses. Bankers and moneylenders and their employees number 4000: insurance

agents and canvassers 4600, grocers and their assistants 9500, butchers and their boys 6000, ironmongers > and machinery salesmen 4300, drapers, clothiers, tailors and other textile retailers 14,400, storekeepers 5000, and other shopkeepers, trades and business men 52.000. Social Workers

Those upon whom it devolves to maintain law and order, the policemen and the justices, the lawyers, and the jailers, number 6000. There are nearly 5000 clergymen, vergers and sextons, and social workers, 2000 of the last-named being women. There are--16,000 doctors and medical workers, but of this number about 10,000 are nurses. There are 5987 schoolmasters. 455 schooknarms, and there are 16,300 localbody officers, civil servants, and others engaged in public administration.

Besides these, 5500 people make a living by entertainment, sport or recreation, 56,745 by domestic service, hotelkeeping. and waiting, and about 750 by defence. About 46,000 people, nominally no doubt included in many of the categories mentioned, are unemployed. Of the entire population, approximately 59,000 are employers, 74,000 busied on their own account, and 500.000 workers.

It is interesting to notice that there are still 28 Maori War pensioners alive. The Maori Wars ended in the ’seventies, and men who took part must now be fully 80 years old. There are only 55 Boer War pensioners left, of the 6500 New Zealanders who fought in South Africa, only 40-odd years ago. There are 24,000 Great War and 59,000 old-age pensioners drawing on the public purse to-day. Of the total population, 20 per cent., one in every five, was born overseas. Indeed, of the adult population, the proportion is nearer one in three. The flow of immigration has at any rate temporarily stopped, but even so in 10 years 1200 aliens have been naturalized as New Zealanders. Of them nearly half were Slavs, and most of the remainder Germans, Italians, or Scandinavians. Actually, some 2000 immigrants arrive yearly, and 90 per cent, of them are British. Hindus, and Syrians are the principal race aliens. The population is,- however, predominantly British. It is, indeed, the proud boast of this Dominion that she is the most essentially English child of the Empire. Her language is pure, unmarred by any pronounced accent, twang, or intonation. Her traditions are those of the Old Country. Of all the Dominions, she is the one in which English people find themselves most at home. This is due, of course, to the constant influx of English blood throughout her history, and

the endeavours of her settlers to reproduce the atmosphere of their homeland. Early settlement was almost entirely by Britishers, with the exception of the small French settlement at Akaroa, and the organized immigration of some 4000 Scandinavians in the ’seventies. Recent troubles in Europe have brought an influx of South Europeans, Jews, Slavs, and Germans, and this seems likely to continue in the immediate future. While there are no statistics to indicate in what spheres these migrants find a livelihood, the general tendencies are easily perceptible by observation. The fishing industry is conducted largely by Italians and Dalmatians, the Greeks enter the restaurant and catering trades, the Scandinavians and Germans take on bush-whacking and seamen’s callings, Chinese and Hindus carry on the fruit, market gardening, and laundry trades, and most of the Jewish migrants enter commercial undertakings. So, a million and a half of assorted individuals, each utterly dissimilar in origins, traditions, beliefs, prejudices, interests, and occupations, the people, of New Zealand walk their manifold paths of life, alreadyunited by the subtle bonds of nationality, already welded into a solid and progressive new race. They have forgotten their native lands for islands of their adoption, they have found new ideals and a new allegiance, and are happy and proud to call themselves New Zealanders.