The Labour Question

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 11, 13 July 1893, Page 2

The Labour Question

Tiik Manawatu district teems to have a great attraction for the unemployed from all parts of New Zealand, especially the South Island, and Australia, and " swaggers " are constantly on the roads in search of employment. One settler on the Kimbolton road went to the trouble to keep a record of tunals supplied to the " floating population," which numbered forty within two months, only two of whom returned the second time, all the remainder being different faces, ami this is not counting what was given away at the door. The settler in question states that he enquired of each where ho had come from and a large majority wore from Australia, being attracted to these parts as the happy hunting ground for the proletariat by the large amount of land settlement and Government co-opera-tive works going on in the immediate vicinity. The men invariably believed that they could easily get employment and make from twelve to fourteen shillings a day, but when they got here some even offered to work for their board. The prosperity of this district in so magnified that men froir. the South Imliuhl have been known to give up good situations to come here, and after a short tiujo be glad to get buck. It \$ a great tax on tin" Mcitjtsrg to have to supply so many moult, hut nobody likes to turn a hungry man away, and it is to bo hoj»<:<i tljid Ktato of affajrs will not vontijiuu lung.