THE LABOUR MARKET.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 15003, 25 May 1909, Page 6

THE LABOUR MARKET.

lx spite of tho gloomy stories told by some northern newspaiJors, the unemployed problem does not appear to bo any more serious iust now than it is usually at this timo of tho year. There has been a falling-off in the imports of merchandise, and to some extent the wharf labourers must havo been suffering, but the general reports do not bear out the suggestion that there is any abnormal decline in the demand for labour. The Minister of Labour, who should bo in a position to know the facts, declares that his Department has not been greatly troubled lately by mon seeking employment, and if the conditions ruling in Wellington were as bad as one journal suggests the Department would surely have been besieged by applicants for work. Air Hogg speaks quite cheerfully of tho outlook, declaring that tho prospects of.tho labour market are brighter than they havo been for some timo past. Hero in tho South Island, whilo there havo been a few unemployed in tho cities, the country haS been calling out for labour, and during the last month or two the farmers would have been glad to give work to any active men offering themselves. Tho difficulty is that so many men decline to go out of tlie towns to look for work. As soon as it was suggested that men willing to take work on the* railways wero out of employment the Public Works Department made arrangements to employ them, and so far as wo can ascertain thcro is no reason why an able-bodied man should havo been out of work anywhere in the dominion during tlie last few weeks. Some of tho Government’s critics are very anxious to make the industrial

condition, of tho dominion appear worse than it really is, but if the public have been reading the newspapers at all closely they will not be deceived. It is an old trick with the Conservatives to suggest that Now Zealand is on the vorge of poverty and ruin.