The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1883 The Unemployed

Feilding Star, Volume IV, Issue 84, 18 December 1883, Page 2

The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1883 The Unemployed

We learn from our telegrams on Saturday last that a large number of the unemployed in Canterbury were to interview the Hon. W. Rolleston and the Hon. E. Mitchelson on that day. It is said that in Christchurch there are upwards of 500 unemployed ■ persons, and the question of finding work and food for this number is promising to give the Government a good deal of worry and anxiety. It is not said that this number of people, with the wives and families who are dependant on them for their bread, are in actual want, but it is safe to assume that there are a great number in distressed circumstances, and with whom the absolute necessaries of life are not in too great an abundance. This being the case, we think that the sympathies of all right thinking men out to be extended towards the sufferers, and all reasonable facilities given to them for obtaining work. In order to do this we would suggest a plan so simple in its execution that it should commend itself to everyone. Let the Minister in whose Department such matters lie telegraph to the Chairman of every County Council and Road Board, and also to the Mayor of every Borough, asking whether work can be found for some of the labor that is in excess in the South Island, in the districts or Boroughs under their control, stating the kind of work wanted, and the numbers that could be absorbed. Should this plan be adopted, we are convinced that one week would settle the whole difficulty, and " the voice of the unemployed " would be heard no more in the land, unless it were the pitiful whining of some poor wretch who preferred eking out a miserable existance as a demagogue who detests work himself and hates honest industry in others. In the Oroua and Mauawatu Counties, and in the Feilding and Palmerston Boroughs, a few hundred workmen would be welcomed and their presence scarcely noticed. What with road making, bush felling, shearing, and the coming harvest, employers will soon be. at their wits end to find men to do the work. The only doubt that arises is whether the class of men we require are available, and this would be removed by selecting only such as were capable of performing the work that is here necessary to be done. We do not want that class of people who prefer starving in the town to working in the country. We only want men with thews and sinews, and the desire to better their condition in life. [Since the above was in type, we learn that the Minister of Public Works telegraphed to the Mayor of Auckland enquiring what demand there was for labor there. It was wired back that there was a good demand for pick and shovel men, bricklayers, engineers and carpenters ; pick and shovel men were, however, most needed, li our suggeswas carried out, the unemployed would soon disappear.]