N LABOUR WANTED.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144130, 27 June 1913, Page 7

N LABOUR WANTED.

ACCORDING TO UNION OFFICIALS Per Press Association. ' CHRISTCHURCH, Juno 26. Mr. Fagan, secretary of the Inangahua Miners’ Union, who passed through Christchurch to-day to attend an executive meeting of the Federation of Labour, the Federation Congress and the Unity Congress at Wellington, was interviewed concerning a cable sent by him to the secretary of the Australian Miners’ Association to stop labour from coming from Broken Hill district to Reefton. Mr. Fagan said that the position was that the mines at Reefton wera already fully manned. The Wealth and Blackwater mines were fully manned, and the batteries were crushing a greater tonnage than ever before. Tho Globe battery was not employing the full number of stamps but that was not due to scarcity of labour. The statement that 300 men ■were required at -Reefton was ]y untrue. The union had certainly attempted to prevent men from coming from Broken Hill, and also from tho North Island of New Zealand, because they felt that the men wore only wanted for the purpose of increasing competition in tho matter of contracting on tho field. “The union,” added Mr, Fagan, “has no desire to cripple the mining industry in Reefton, nor to hamper the field in any way, but we consider it our duty to protect the lives awl limbs and welfare of our members generally, and to prevent men*coming to Reefton on what would certainly prove to ba a wijd goose chaso.” DUNEDIN, June 26. Mr. M, M'Allen, secretary of tho General Labourers’ Union, states that there are at present fully 100 labourers out of work in Dunedin. He asserts that there are in Otago, at any rate, plenty of men available to fill the demand for workers, both in town and the country. In fact, he asserted, able, strong men were leaving the Dominion for Australia in search of work, and their places were being ■ filled by London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow farm labourers, who, however, will not leave the town. Ho said that ten young men from Central Otago had_ left for Australia, stating that they” could not get work in their localities as farm labourers.