LABOUR LEGISLATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVIII, Issue 11462, 28 December 1897, Page 3

LABOUR LEGISLATION.

'■ TO THE EDITOR.

'• - Sir, —The Master and Apprentice Bill 7 must confer considerable benefit on the ■ Workers when it is so virulently opposed by the employers of labour.'The solicitude ■shown by them for the welfare of the iyoung people of this colony would be commendable if it were not dictated by a love of cheap labour. We know that of all the Australasian Colonies there is none turns ~‘out such a number of half-taught tradesmen, as New Zealand. And why? Because the majority , are not properly .■apprenticed. Most employers take them ‘.on wholesale when they are busy, and discharge them as soon as suits their purpose. They make no effort to teach the lads; all their trouble r 'is to make money out of their labour. Borne shops have two or three boys to one ..man. Who is to teach the boys their trade P Under such circumstances they ,learn very little, and are only wast,'ing their time. It is a well-known .'■fact that the fewer the' apprentices ■-there are in shops the better the .tradesmen, are- who serve their time in ;tham. The claptrap cry of being defended against one’s own children shows to what extremes men will go to try and fool their fellow-creatures. We know how much 'morality there is in commercialism. _ It is a case of beggar your neigh.bour and his family. Employers ( who inveigh against the Bill want unrestricted liberty to take on and put off as they like the boys and girls they employ, and to pay little or nothing for their .labour, and all this outcry is because the .Master .and Apprentice Bill says they shall do so no .longer. If the Bill were passed without alteration, there would he more journeymen turned out than could possibly ■ find employment at their trades, and they ■.would have to do what thousands of young New Zealanders have already done —leave “the colony. But what does that matter to employers !—I am, Ac., D. G. KELLY.