The Pahiatua Herald. with which is incorporated THE PAHIATUA STAR. Published Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 1894.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume II, Issue 141, 27 April 1894, Page 2

The Pahiatua Herald. with which is incorporated THE PAHIATUA STAR. Published Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 1894.

The functions of the Labor Bureau have evidently been misunderstood. It was never intended that this Department should be inaugurated for the mere purpose of keeping a proportion of the. population drifting from one part of the colony to another for no other apparent reason than to maintain the principl; of “ move on.” The original intention was to found a central institution which should bo practically an equalising and distributing agency for the whole of the oountry ; not Hooding with surplus labor an already well-supplied locality, and leaving another part devoid of workmen ; nor disregarding the just claims of local laborers to have a fair share of the public work being carried on in the locality in which they reside. It was meant that the officers of tho Bureau should acquaint themselves with the state of the labor market in the different districts of the colony, and with the various conditions ob taining in these districts, and that having done so they should constitute their office a medium for tho equalisation of -supply and demand. The idoa that the burden of unemployed should be removed from one district to another equally burdened wi? never | anticipated. That course simply entails a tax on the general community with IT? compensating feature. We are induced id make these remarks owing to the fact that Dija affairs of the Bureau, at all events those affecting this district, have lately been administered in a peculiarly lop sided fashion. Lately a large majority of the men employed on the co-op. rative Works in different parts of this dir.iiot | were discharged. Many of these aitn, I deluded into tho belief that their work '

was what men of their nomftdic tendencies would term permanent, had brought their families to the district. They were thus prevented from going elsewhere in search of employment and had to compote in an already overcrowded market to enable them to eke out an existancc. The latest, we learn, is that the full complement of men will again be put on the works, but that the places wilLbc filled by men to bo sent up from Christchurch and Wellington. Surely this is au unjustice to tho workers who were lately discharged. If work is to be done they, in common decency, should bo given tho preference. The action in this matter is only one of the many little peculiarities which have given tho Labour Bureau tho reputation of being administered in a wonderful and unique manner.