SPEECH BY THE PREMIER.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12901, 12 February 1906, Page 7

SPEECH BY THE PREMIER.

ALLEGED SHORTAGE OF LABOUR.

APPEAL TO THE ARTIZANS

Per Presa Association.

WELLINGTON, February 10.

.'Speaking ;it the Upper Hutt last night -Mr fc-edabii said chere was still a thousand trick and shovel men required for the North Island- Main Trunk railway works. He woiiiu be asked next session why he iiot expended the money voted for the .Main. .Trunk railways, which Parliament exjected to; be completed before the next general' ejection, but how could they expend the money when they could not get men. Private employers were taking £be sfoest men from the co-operative works, and. farnier» were complaining that they could not get labour .for the harvest; yet if they adopted-an immigration scheme-they would at- once' bei foniVd fault with for flooding the labour market 1 to the detriment "of those -who were, already'in ihe country. Personally he had complete confidence that as the years'-went by there would be still more w&fk;.3m-;'the* cotmtry than there was to- ,; rThe Premier, in referring to immigration, said he believed that there was room in Sfew Zealand for aii who might-come, but; ''hie* made an appeal on behalf of those of ■our own kindred and blood: The time was opportune, he said, to advise his "hearers. to k l>e:true to their own race. Whatever might happen they must loak to racial iraritv and resist each and every attempt' that might be. made in the opposite direction; for were those who for. their own would move in. that difecikm. " Let us' work out our own desfeies," s&r Seddon continued, "and the people of ; "jSew Zealand can work out theirs/best by '.tieing-true to: the race from.;, which .they One of your troubles to-day is Sndue* competition from the low wages paid ' m couches within whose boundaries those who toil are far' from being in. the same favoured condition in which you are placed:" it is tb.pt keen.ebmpetition which is hampering and injuring many, of the artisan class New Zealand.*' . Mr Seddon concluded bv urging the necessity for keeping 4nr i-'divstries free frony'fraud and Tfealprr.elice by persons engaged in them.