THE LABOR QUESTION.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2349, 12 October 1870, Page 2

THE LABOR QUESTION.

To the Editor of the Evening Star. Sir— ln your issue of Saturday, there is a letter on the labor question, and -wrote in the same strain that is generally used by people that are in comfortable circumstances in Province. “ Citizen” begins by lamenting that Mr Macandrew’s answers to Mr Ralston were not more fully reported, and that a Mr M'Nicol was pleased on his arrival in the early days of the Province to earn 3s per day, I don’t doubt but that he was, as perhaps he had not been used to such wages at home ; but if the old settlers would enquire, they would find out that working-men’s wages have rose oue-third within the last twenty years ; and as to taking credit to themselves for their present position, the ancient settlers may thank the goldfields of Victoria in the first place, which opened for them a ready market at very large prices for their oats and potatoes ; and next by the enterprise of Victorian diggers opening goldfields in their own Province, providing a market for all their produde at any price they liked to ask—and they did not forget to ask a price neither ; and now that they have secured all the best land in the Province, and are receiving splendid incomes out of city lands that they bought for a few pounds, and which were mere swamps and hills cover d with flax previous to the discovery of gold, they hold themselves up as models of energy and enterprise, ahq taunt the men that made them and who have beeii un f ortunate, with not being satisfied to work for a bare pittance for them. “ Citizen” goes on to state that there is any amount of work at high wages for men, and that men not being able to find employmeet did not prove any scarcity of work, but that they were too well off, and were just banging on until they got something good to- suit them. Now, sir, was it not a fact that hundreds of men went to get tickets for work at as per diem on the roads, and from the inclemency of the weather at that time, they oould not expect to work more than four days a week. Does that look like being too well off? How would “ Citizen ” have liked to have taken up his swag, and pitched his tent on a bleak hillside in such weather, for the large sum of a pound per week ? I think he has not been far up this country, or he would find that the climate is quite as bad as it is at Home. Perhaps he would be kind enough to inform

ns where laborers are getting from 7s to 10s per day, and if there is a demand for any more at the same rate of wag'-s. “ Citizen ” says that the Executive erred in providing work for the unemployed at a loss to the country. Now it is well-known that the roads were in a very bad state, and if they could get men to work for 5s per day instead of 7s or 10a per day, it must be evident to anyone but “Citizen” that the Government are gainers. As the right of Government to give labor to the unemployed, I think that depends on what part they took in bringing men out here. The law of supply and demand is often talked of when it suits certain parties, and why should it not apply to this? If there is a demand for labor at high wages, men will go to it, as they did in Victoria in the early days of the goldfields, without any pulling agents at home; and it is hard that the working-classes should he taxed to bring out cheap labor for s natters and farmers. If Government interfere one way, why not in another ? There has been a great deal wrote about Chinamen in the him' of late, and they have been held up as models for Europeans to imitate by people who know very little a’out them. Perhaps “ Citizen ” is not aware that Chinamen are brought over by capitalists who get all they make for a certain time, and that in China a man is doing well who makes sixpence a pay ; they are therefore satisfied to work for their wealthier counti-ymen until they arc free, and if lucky enough to scrape a few pounds together, they can go home and live in affluence. To state that Chinamen are all doing well is simply nonsense. There are plenty of them just making a bare existence, and as they neither read the papers nor are able to write to them, we don’t get their version of it, like the lucky European diggers. We hear a deal of the lucky few, but nothing of the hundreds of unfortunates. If the Escort returns for the last year were compared with the population on the diggings, I am sure they would not average 30s per man a week. “ Citizen ” says that oujtlie digg ngs are workmen, only he evidently knows little about the diggings. All old diggers know that it is not always the hardest-working men who get the most gold, but very often the reverse. I w.ll conclude by advising “ Citizen ” when next he writes to you, to try something he knows a little about, even if it were only loafers and agitators. I am, &c , Miner, Duncan street. Dunedin, October 10, 1870.