JUVENILE IMMIGRATION

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 108, 21 April 1911, Page 7

JUVENILE IMMIGRATION

NEW ZEALAND’S GREAT NEED

NOT RECOGNISED BY LABOUR

Christchurch. April 20

The question of assisted immigration came before the Trades and Labour Federation conference this afternoon. The subject was raiseci on the following remit from the Wellington Council “ That the conference protests strongl.v against the spending of public money by the Government in introducing labour from outside the country into any industry which is not adequately protected under tin’ industrial laws of the country.”

A lengthy letter from Mr. T. E. Sedgwick was read by the presi dent. The letter dealt with main of the objections which had been urged against the immigration oi boys for farm work. Mr. Sedgwick contended that New Zealand’s greatest need at present was population. Lads from Home were receptive. adaptable, keen, willing, and energetic. They would learn, settle, and marry. Every lad re : presented a capital expenditure of £250 in the country, and was therefore a gift of that value to the land of his adoption. The advantages of apprenticeship were immense, and the banking of wages should ensure that each lad would have £hio saved before he came of age. All the Sedgwick boys were total abstainers, and each had a good past record. The adoption of the remit was moved by Mr. E. J. Carey (Wellington). who said that the workers were not opposed to immigration of the right sort, but they objected to the Government spending the taxpayers’ money on assisted immigration. He would not say that the Sedgwick boys would make an appreciable difference to the labour market of the country, but farmers should not require any State assistance in getting boys out here. Mr. Sedgwick talked about proper safeguards and supervision, but they knew that farmers were prepared to sweat their own children and did sweat them on dairy farms. If they were not humane enough not to sweat their own children, what would they do to boys who were assisted out here? Mr. Forde (Southland) said that Southland had had the same experience of lads who had been assisted out here much on the same principle as Mr. Sedgwick’s boys. Their ages ranged to 25 years, and they were entirely unfitted for the work they had to do. How could they expect to get agricultural labourers from a country in which agriculture was dead ? Boys were already drifting into the townsand competing with other lads for town situations. Mr. Sedgwick and others were trying to blind the workers with high-sounding phrases about boys who were entirely unsuited for the purpose for which they had been brought out. Mr. Laracey suggested an addition to the clause in the direction of securing an Arbitration Court award to cover agricultural labour for boys. He believed that the proprietor of a leading registry office in Christchurch had stated that he could not find sufficient farmers to give employment to local boys. He was not against the boys coming into the country, but they should not come here to keep our own men and boys out of work. The bulk of the farmers were good employers, but those who wanted the Sedgwick boys were too mean to pay decent wages to farm labourers. There was no man who could go out and get wages on a farm which would allow him to maintain his wife and, say, three children in town. If farmers were willing to have an award made for these boys and men on the farm, let them bring in as many boys as they liked.

Mr. D. McLean said that the question was one of votes. There was a strong competition by both parties for the farmer’s vote, and that was the reason for the expeniture of public money to get farmers’ cheap labour, and also the desire to exempt the farmer from the operation of arbitration awards. The remit was agreed to.