The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, APRIL, 14, 1891. The Unemployed

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 125, 14 April 1891, Page 2

The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, A PRIL, 14, 1891. The Unemployed

The : Eton. Mr Seddon has preaebed a : useful sermon to the unemployed in Canterbury, whose chief endin life is to live by the Government. In reply to a "deputation which claimed to represent three hundred men, the Hon Mr Seddon said : — Thei*e were now no \ public works in Canterbury as they were all completed, and it was a good thing it was co. They may have made a few shillings out of the borrowed money while it lasted, and now they had to pay the taxes for it. If as they said, they expected more from this Government than the last they were doomed to be disappointed. The Government were not going to find work simply to give employment. If they wanted to be employed on public works they must go to where they were being carried on. But they (the ".working men" in Christchurch) said no, they wanted work here. Mr Seddon said he could remember when he was a much younger man, in Victoria, he had to go 100 miles with nothing in' r Kis pocket to iind something to do, As for them, they had been so long in Canterbury, they made so much money during part of the year, and then looked to the Government for assistance to carry on for the rest of the year. His Government would not encourage that. Mr Seddon fcold the unadulterated truth when he said, some men were not particular, and left their wives to look out for washing, while their husbands walked about. He did not intend to eucourage that sort of thing, either. With reference to their statement that " they wanted work more to enable them to get over the time until the Minister of Lands found landfor them elsewhere," Mr Seddon asked, suppose the Government did find work, tvere any of them in a position to go on the laud ? They would have to go on to bush land, and it was impossible for them to go without means, therefore they would not go on the land. In reply to the complaint that the Government would not pay carriage hire to take the men to their work Mr Seddon said it was better to walk when work was at the cud of the journey, than to walk about Christchurch " lookiug for work." They ought to have experience on gold fields. No old iniuer would complain of having to walk fifty miles. (They are a different sort of meu, miiiers, Mr Seddon, Ed. F. 8.) Having been informed that when the " unemployed" were put to work iv gangs they did not agree among themselves. Mr Seddon's anger was apparently roused at this for he said — they had now come to the bed rock of the question. When the meu were put ou the work they quarrelled among themselves, said one man was doing more work than another, and so threw up tho job and went back to Ohristchurch. He must take it, then, that things were not so bad in Christchurch as they said. If it was real right — down necessity, and a man wanted work and had a wife and family to support he would not haggle about a two days walk and coach fare. In concluding, Mr Seddon said " no one could call him harsh, he was a plain spoken man, who called a spade a spade, and he would not recognise the principle that the Government were to find work for the unemployed." There is much practical good sense in this reply of Mr Seddon — but, it must have been a bitter pill for the deputation to swallow when they had said " they had now, or were supposed to have, a liboral Government, and they expected them to find work for those out of employment," they had forgotten that if you " scratch a liberal you find a tyrant. At the Federation Convention the title of the bill " Commonwealth" was objected to on the ground of its historical connection with Cromwell. This objection goes far to show that even if we are a selfstyled free and democratic people, yet the hereditary snobbery of the English still remains in the blood. A large majority of the intelligent men of the present day, who have read and studied the history of that period, no matter what their political opinions may now be, have arrived at the conviction that the Cromwellian spoch in England was the grandest and brightest, and that its splendour ha 3 only been outshone by the Victorian reign. That there were horrors perpetrated during the civil war is true, but was there ever a series of internecine battles in which similar scenes were not enacted ? We opine not. Let anyone compare the virtue and morality of tho court of England during the time of Cromwell, with the vice and crime which obtained in the court of Charles the. Second, the immediate successor of Cromwell, and mark the contrast. Under Cromwell, England was feared and respected among the nations, while under the licentious and profligaio Charles, sho was despised among men, and her king was but a contemptible pensioner of the Monarch of- France. Should there be any who have doubts as to the comparative merits of the two men, Cromwe'l the Protector, and Charles " the Merry Monarch,' we commend fosu.-h the real'ng of "Cromwell's Let. c s" by Carlyle. To return to the main point now at is.su e, we are glad to note that better councils prevailed, and the Federation decided to retain the title " Commonwealth" because " it had been Uded before the time of Cronvvoll." There is even in this a strong leavon of snobbery, but we must be satisfied with the main result. In our correspondence column we publish an interesting letter from Mr Henry Osborne, a writer who has had especial, opportunities of witnessing the havoc pl.iyed by the kea parrot among sheep in tho Southern snow <:lad ranges. It will bo soim that iWr Osborne does not approve of the Government placing a Bum

on the estimates, as requested by the 1 sheep farmers, for the destruction of thesepests, because in his opinion, : such money would be wasted. The only way to; kill them which has even partially succeeded is by shooting-- Ali oiher methods attempted such as snaring,- trapping, or poisoning have proved titter failures.-