SECRETARY FOB LABOUR'S RETIREMENT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 20, 25 January 1911, Page 7

SECRETARY FOB LABOUR'S RETIREMENT.

FAREWELL WORDS OF MR. TREGEAR. WORK YET TO BE DONE. "I (cave the department with great regret," said Mr. "E. Tregear, Secretary for Labour, who is on the eve of retiring from the Public Service, to a Post representative. "Perhaps the greatest regret is that I leave those who have been associated with me for years : many of them came under my charge when they were mere boye and girls, and it 6eems like saying' good-bye to, members of my own family. I have been thirty years in the Government service, and, as one gets older, it is very hard to change the current of one's thoughts and ideas, and to get out of ithe groove that life has worn so deep. However, feeling that I have considerable physical strength, and that I cannot yet recognise that my mental forces are much weakened, I am hoping to bo still able to do some good work if I am spared for a few years longer. "The time I have spent in the Labour Department," continued Mr. Tregear, "has made more certain the assurance that theie is an immense amount of work still to be done before the injustice and the inequalities which have to be borne by one part 01 society are recognised and improved by those who have hitherto enjoyed the better part of life's privileges and 'comforts. It is in the hope not of depriving anyone of anything really valuable, but in the desire to give others things which are also of real value, that I intend to still v/ork and to endeavour to make myself useful. "During the time I have been in the Labour Department part of my work has been to study the literature which has poured in week by week from all the countries in which industries on a large scale are carried on. From this literature I have gained a good idea of what men are thinking in France, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Italy, £>nd Euseia, and even a good doai of what men consider i.he position in China and Japan and some of the lesscivilised nations. Therefoie I am in a position to look at questions from a somewhat wider point of view than ¦those who have not been so favourably situated) and I hope to be able to taka a wide \ie\v of the social questions and the industrial difficulties which threaten soon to bring about an epoch of turmoil and trouble. " Even now the waves of industrial unrest are rising high, and there is no doubt, the time is coming when the very wisest heads and the strongest hands will be required to steer society through the difficulties and dangers ¦which will present themselves. Every man in the community knows best wnat the immediate trouble affecting him industrially or socially may be, but tho difficulty is hi so arranging that these troubles mcy in some degree neutralise one another, so that it may be possible that better conditions may arrive even, under the conditions -which exist at present. For instance, a very great deal of trouble arises from the uncertainty and the fluctuations of business at certain times of the year in partieulai trades. That state of things, if directed by a more wisely organised intelligence, might be considerably improved. Then there are the larger problems of tho falling of the birthrate and immigratioii, both of which directly affecs the con- j linuity of th& State. In tact, there is j no matter which affecis society as a vhole which does not at once direcily effect labour, but whether it need affect lahour so harshly as it does at present is a question for careful consideration. "In leaving the department," said lilr. Tregear, in conclusion, "I have this to say in. regard to my administratina : that it has never been attacked by the employers on the ground that it was partial or unjust. The attacks that have been made on me 011 several occasions have related entirely to my opinions and not to my administration, and I do not believe there is a single person in tho country who can say that I have alJowed any ill-feeling or any spite to influence in the smallest degree my official position. The department has been and is in a peculiar position. It is perfectly possible for an official of the Treasury or of the Insurance Department to attend solely to his work without in any w^v touching on political ground, but I. after I have been about amongst the workers and found a just grievance, after I have represented to the Minister how that grievance should be removed, am of necessity obliged to enter the political arena in support of the method proposed to be adopted."