Labour Recruiting

W. Samoa Spurns Legalised Labour Recruiting

From a Special Correspondent APIA, Sept. 18. rHE manpower shortage in New Zealand, nlus the fact that the Western Samoan population is acreasing faster than certain kinds f jobs, has opened the way for nigration from the Territory to he factories and industries of the )ominion.

This has suited the NZ employer nd also the part-European young ters and the more adventurous amoans who find it easier to make niche for themselves in NZ than i the Territory.

It has also suited a few Territory itizens who set themselves uo as Drt of labour recruiters for' NZ mployers and made a pound or vo for their efforts (£5 a head has een suggested as the recognised bruiting fee). )URING the recent session of the local Legislative Assembly, a Bill was introduced to legalise iis recruiting and for the licens ig of agents—the purpose of the gislation being to safeguard those idertaking to work for a specified Z employer.

However, the bill had a hostile sception from most of the ssembly members who held that hour recruiting was a retrograde ep much too reminiscent of the lackbirding days to find an moured place in the legislation of freedom-seeking country like imoa. Therefore, after numerous nendments. the Bill actually ided as legislation to prohibit the cruiting of labour in Samoa for u.

This does not, of course, prohibit e youth of Samoa from going to 2 to work. It simply means that ey must, officially at any rate, go ider their own steam and in the •pe that the laws, migration and herwise, of both countries will re them the necessary protection )m exploitation. indentured labour and recruiting labour have, merely as terms, tfered such criticism, often un ited, that it is surprising that yone ever got as far as introduc s the matter to the Assembly. ■t, if members had been able to 3rcome their dislike of the whole smess of recruiting, it probably uld have been no bad thing for 5 young people of Samoa. Most ahsed forms of recruiting give • more protection to the em »yee than to the employer.

With the programme the 80 000 moans have mapped out for imselves, there is little future in

Western Samoa for the majority of those people of mixed parentage who wish to live as Europeans.

They are landless, and the sort of jobs they want to fill are strictly limited. Their best chance of a place in the sun seems to lie in migration and in this they have been helped considerably in recent years in the fortuitous fact that NZ has been short of manpower.

Mr. Tom P. Byrne (Chief of Customs) was injured in a jeep ac cident at Port Moresby on Septem

ber 19. When driving a jeep from, the driveway of his house on Paga Hill the vehicle swung off the main road on the turn, and tilted over the edge. Mr. Byrne suffered a fractured leg, shock and injuries to his chest and nose, and was ad mitted to hospital.

The Fiji Amateur Sports Asso ciation will hold a championship meetng at Albert Park, Suva, on Monday, October B—Cession Day— which is a public holiday through out the Colony.