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1894. NEW ZEALAND.

LABOUR BILLS COMMITTEE. (MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE COMMITTEE IN THE MATTER OF THE MASTER AND APPRENTICE BILL No. 2, TOGETHER WITH APPENDICES.)

Presented to the House of Representatives, and ordered to be printed.

ORDER OP REFERENCE. Extract from the Journals of the Souse of Representatives. Monday, the 22nd Day of Octobeb, 1894. Ordered, " That the evidence taken before the Labour Bill Committee, relative to the Master and Apprentice Bill (No. 2), be printed and circulated amongst the various employers, associations, and labour organizations throughout the colony."—(Mr. Pinkeeton,)

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.

Feidat, 31st August, 1894. —Mr. Pinkebton, Chairman. •Jambs Mackay examined. 1. The CJiairman.] What are you?—l am chief clerk of the Labour Department. 2. We are prepared to hear what you have to say in regard to this Bill, in favour or otherwise. Mr. Mackay : Judging from the general provisions of the Bill, 1 think it will be very useful in regard to masters and apprentices connected with the different trades. There are several trades which, in my opinion, will benefit by this Bill if it should become law, or some such law. There are two especially. One of these is the printing trade. I think that an Act of this sort will very much benefit that trade, because it is so overrun with what is called boy-labour. Young men, or boys, are being taken on as apprentices to this trade without any indenture or binding arrangement. They are taken on at very low wages. After they have served for two or three years, perhaps, they ask for an increase of wages or salary. There are many masters who will then say, "We cannot afford to keep you any longer." The result is these young men are discharged. lam aware that many masters will not do this. These young men, most of them about eighteen or nineteen years of age, when they have been so discharged, enter into competition with outside labour. They are neither apprentices nor journeymen, and they have to go to some other shop at low wages. They thus compete with men who have served six or seven years to the trade. The result of this competition is to bring down the prices in every branch of the printing trade to very much less than the standard rates. These young men cannot be said to have learned the trade. They are not properly trained tradesmen. The consequence is that the standard of efficiency is very much reduced. Then, there is the cabinet-making trade. In this city there are scores of young men who have served in one shop for two, or, may be, three years, and then get discharged because the employer says he cannot keep them on any longer. They have not in any sense become efficient tradesmen. They also compete with the trained journeymen in this trade. They work for £1 10s. or £1 15s. a week, whereas the current rate of wages would be £3. The effect of this practice is to reduce wages all round. A master will keep one or, perhaps, two competent men to do the finer class of work, and will use these "improvers," as this class of men are called, for the ordinary work; meanwhile, men who have served a full legal apprenticeship are walking about the streets, and cannot get employment. In the Labour Department we are constantly having the same complaints brought before us. Men in all trades are constantly coming to me and complaining of the extent to which the so-called boy-labour interferes with the fully-trained mechanic. In conversation with many of these young men themselves, I find that they have been employed for two or three years at a trade, and having served that period they are got rid of. Take the boot-trade, for another instance of young men and boys being employed without any indenture or anything to bind them or the masters for a sufficient time, so as to thoroughly learn I—l. 13.