SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Southland Times, Issue 14634, 26 January 1911, Page 5

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

MR. EDWARD TREGEAR. SPEAKS OF HIS LIFE’S WORK. (Special to the “ Times.”) WELLINGTON, Jan. 25. “I leave the Department with great regret,” said to a reporter, Mr E. Tregear. Secretary for Labour, who is on the eve of, retiring from the public service. “Perhaps the greatest regret is that I leave those who have been associated with me for years. Many of them came under my charge when they were mere boys and girls, and it seems like saying goodbye to members of my own family. I have been thirty years in the Government service, and as one gets older it is very hard to change the current of one’s thoughts and ideas, and to get out of the groove that life has worn so deep. However, feeling that I have considerable physical strength and that I cannot yet recognise that my mental forces are much weakened, I am hoping to be still able to do some good work if I aiji spared for a few years longer. “The time I have spent in the Labour Department,” continued Mr Tregear, “has made more certain the assurance that there is an immense amount of work still to be done before the Injustice and inequalities which have to be borne by one part of society are recognised and improved *by those who have hitherto enjoyed tire better part of life’s privileges and comforts. It is in the hope not of depriving anyone of anything really valuable, but in the desire to give others things which are also of real value that I intend to still work, and to endeavour to make myself useful. During the time I have been in the Labour Department part of my work has been to study the literature which has poured in week by week from all the countries in which industries on a large scale are carried on. From this literature I have gained a good idea of what men are thinking in France, Germany. Sweden, Austria. Italy and Russia, and even a good deal of what men consider the position in China and Japan, and some of the less civilised nations. Therefore I am in a position to look at questions from a somewhat wider point of view than those who have not been so favourably situated, and I hope to be able to take a wide view of the social questions and the industrial difficulties which threaten soon to bring about an epoch of turmoil and trouble. “Even now,” Mr Tregear went on. “the waves of industrial unrest are running high, and there is no doubt the time is coming when the very wisest heads and the strongest hands will be required to steer society through the difficulties and dangers which will present themselves. Every man in the community knows best what the Immediate trouble affecting him industrially or socially may be; but the difficulty Is in so arranging that these troubles may in some degree neutralise one another so that it may be possible that better conditions may arrive. Even under the conditions which exist at present, for Instance, a very great deal of trouble arises from the uncertainty and the fluctuations of business at certain times of the year in particular trades. That state of things, if dldected by a more wisely organised intelligence, might be considerably improved. Then there are the larger problems of the fail in the birthrate and immigration, both of which directly affect the continuity of the State; In fact there is no matter which affects society as a whole which does not at once affect Labour. But whether it need affect labour so harshly as it does at present it a question for careful consideration. “In leaving the Department," said Mr Tregear in conclusion, “I have this to say in regard to my administration, that it has never been attacked by the employers on the ground that it was partial or unjust. The attacks that have been made on me on several occasions have related entirely to my opinions and not to my administration, and I do not believe that there is a single person in the country who can say that I have allowed any ill-feeling or any spite to influence iu the smallest degree my official position. Tiie Department has been and is in a peculiar position. It is perfectly possible for an official of, the Treasury or of the Insurance Department to attend solely to his work without in any way touching on political ground; blit I, after I have been about amongst the workers and found a just grievance, after I have represented to the Minister Flow that grievance should be removed, am of necessity obliged to enter the political arena in support of the method proposed to be adopted.”