“NATURAL HOBOES” AROUND DUNEDIN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18451, 30 April 1928, Page 10

“NATURAL HOBOES” AROUND DUNEDIN.

WILL NOT TAKE WORK IN COUNTRY DISTRICTS. (Special to the “Star”). DUNEDIN, April 29. Two of the most interesting statements made by the proprietor of a local labour bureau were that among the ranks of the Dunedin unemployed there was a very large number of natural “ hoboes,” and that an unfair state of things was being evolved as regards the placing of the girls who came out from the Old Country to go into domestic .service. These latter, he declared, were wont, to enter factories instead of engaging themselves upon the work for which they were originally sent out. As a result there was a constant demand for.general domestics. “It is still hard to get good farm hands,” he continued. “ There have been a lot of ' hoboes ’ knocking around town for ages, who make no attempt to go out into the country for wages ranging from 30s to £2 5s a week and found. They won’t try very hard for positions. And then again I have seen men sent out to gardening jobs for, say. three days at 12s 6d or 15s a day, and they wouldn’t even take off their coats to start. You can’t tell me they were hard up. I sent out a carpenter’s labourer once, who when told there was only one and a half days’ work turned it down at once. We can always place good reliable ploughmen and milkers, although sometimes they might have to wait a couple of weeks.” The speaker stated that, they had sent out only about half the number of harvesters and shearers this season, the reason for the decrease in the ranks of the former being that the farmers were helping one another. However all through the winter there would be work for good ploughmen and milkers, and altogether the unemployment situation was not ncarl> r as bad as it was painted.