The Fielding Star. SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1886. The Unemployed

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 27, 14 August 1886, Page 2

The Fielding Star. SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1886. The Unemployed

By an Auckland telegram we are informed that only one hundred and forty-three men have as yet accepted employment at the railway works on the Woodhill - Kaipara line, while there is work for double that number. Of four *' unemployed" contracts let by the Corporation, one of the parties have never started work, although nearly a week has elapsed, and they have now practically abandoned it. This intelligence goes a long way to show that a very large proportion of the unemployed who have made ao much noise and been so clamorous to the Government for work, are disinclined to take it when offered to them. In fact, we feel confident that many of them are bitterly disappointed to find their occupation gone as professional agitators. That there are many poor fellows who have suffered and are now suffering deeply from lack of employment suitable for them, we are only too well aware; but experience has taught us that any effort made by theinsolves to leave the beaten track which they have been educated to follow, always leads t© an improvement in their condition either socially or financially. However, these are not the men who swell the ranks |of the typical unemployed. They submit to their sorrows in secret, being ashamed to flaunet their poverty in the faces of their fellow men. They are at the same time backward in taking to "pick and shovel" work as being " ungeuteel." This feeling is in a great measure kept up by their surroundings in the large towns. Let them strike out into the country and manfully submit to its privations or hardships for a few months or years, and a wonderful change for the better will come over them. They will not only be more mauly, but more independent, able to make better provision for themselves and families without beseeching the Government to spoon-feed them.