H.—6

1894. NEW ZEALAND.

DEPARTMENT OF LABOUR (REPORT OF THE).

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly by Command of His Excellency.

The Seceetaey, Department of Labour, to the Hon. the Ministeb of Labotjb. Sib, —- Department of Labour, Wellington, 10th June, 1894. I have the honour to present herewith the third annual report of this department. It covers the late financial year' —viz., from the Ist April, 1893, to the 31st March, 1894. It is not brought up to the present date, as some time has necessarily been taken up in compiling returns into statistical tables. I have, &c, The Hon. "W. P. Eeeves, Minister of Labour. Edwaed Tbegeae, Secretary.

LABOUR. The working-classes in New Zealand have had on the whole little cause of complaint during the past year. The ordinary labour-market of the colony, both in the skilled and unskilled branches, presented its average rate of engagements until towards the end of 1893, when the wave of commercial depression, which has had such calamitous consequences elsewhere, touched us in passing. Had local causes not tended to accentuate for a time this depression, it would scarcely have been felt in this colony at all. Unfortunately, the grain-harvest failed in the South Island, and not only impoverished the farmers, but affected the railway returns so seriously that the increase of profits in transit of other classes of produce was unavailing to restore the balance of the annual budget. The grass-seed harvest about Gisborne and the east coast of the North Island also failed. The stoppage of the Midland Eailway works, and the diminution of the output of coal in the Brunnerton mines, helped to throw many hands on the market in the South, while the sudden fall in the price of kauri-gum has straitened the gum-diggers of Auckland and the northern fields with severe repression of their industry. These reverses are by no means of a kind to induce despondency ; they are in their very nature of a temporary and ephemeral character. The Midland Eailway will probably resume its operations ; the harvest next year may redeem the failure of this ; and kauri-gum recover almost at a bound its former commercial position. The colony has unbounded resources in itself, and better security still in the spirit of its occupiers—men and women who have shown in far more troublous times that to their undaunted energy defeat is impossible. Many branches of industrial occupation have met with encouragement during the year. The wool-clip has been unusually heavy, and in other employments besides the pastoral so large has been the increase of produce that had it not been for low prices ruling elsewhere' (and with whose origin we had nothing to do) we should have had an unusually valuable annual list of exports. Signs of recovering prosperity in Australia and other countries are not wanting, and we can look forward confidently to renewed elasticity in the labour-market as well as in those of trade and commerce. STRIKES. The strikes during the year have been few in number, and only one of these has caused more than local interest. The strike at Benmore Station, in Otago, took place in December, 1893, and arose through a dispute between shearers and the manager as to shearing wet sheep. Mr. Middleton, the stationmanager, engaged twenty-eight shearers, and read over to them the shed rules, regulations, and an agreement by which the shearers were bound to shear all the sheep on the run at the rate of 15s. per hundred, the amount to be paid at the completion of the work, and the manager to be the sole judge as to the fitness of the sheep for shearing. The shearers signed the agreement to this effect on the Bth December, and worked till the 22nd, when they refused to continue, on the ground that the sheep were wet. Shearing wet sheep is unpleasant and unhealthy work, and is a frequent cause I—H. 6.