AUSTRIAN INFLUX.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11122, 14 January 1899, Page 3

AUSTRIAN INFLUX.

THE HUNDRED INVADERS. DIVERSION TO TASMANIA. [bt telegraph.] Auckland, Friday. Pending the arrival of the hundred Austrians aboard the Mokoia from Sydney, Mr E. Langguth, Austrian Consul here, is endeavoring to arrange for the employment of the men. He has had may offers for the -employment of immigrants. A large number could got farm work in the Waikato, and there is ■work for at least 60 at .£1 per week and found on the drainage contract, also in the Waikato. From the north, moreover, comes an offer to" employ a batch of Austrians at the gum diggings on private land at Kaeo, Whangaroa. The Consul, in fact, can arrange for the employment of the whole hundred for three months, during which they are forbidden by the Act to dig gum, but the prospect oE so many foreigners obtaining employment here has led some of the representatives of labor to represent to tho Consul that his action will tend to lower the price of labor, and to keep colonists out of work, because the .Austrians will accept a lower wage. Mr Langguth on the other hand emphasises the fact that he cannot leave his countrymen to starve, and if he can get work for them he must do so. However, it is probable the friction over this question of labor will be avoided, for today Mr Langguth received from Tasmania a. cable offering employment to several hundred pick and shovel, men on railway construction at seven shillings a day. He says if he can induce his countrymen to go to Tasmania on these terms he will send the whole Batch away. It is good pay, and they will bo far better off than they would be here at .£1 a week, and besides that it will do away with the friction with the labor people. The Consul will accordingly try and persuade the Austrians to accept the Tasmanian offer.