The Feilding Star. Published Daily. THURSDAY, JULY 20, 1893. The Unemployed

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 17, 20 July 1893, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Published Daily. THURSDAY, JULY 20, 1893. The Unemployed

« . By a telegram which reached us yesterday afternoon after we bad gone to press, we were informed that the Premier, in replying to a telegram from the Mayor of Duuedin, on the subjoct of the unemployed there, said the present expenditure on public works being boyond the proposed Government expenditure for the year, at a time suoh as this, and during tbe winter mouths, local bodies, and private enterprise, ought if possible, to come to the rescue. Tho Government had done their level best, but cannot and should not be expected to do that which is impossible. Why local bodies should take upon themselves, or rather put upon the shoulders of the ratepayers, the duty of finding work for the unemployed, or •• private enterprise " a quality or thing which the present Government have done their " level best " to suppress, if they could not actually burke, should create an artificial market for labour, passes our comprehension. If the Great General Party, as they have elected to call themselves, had, both here and in other parts of the world, interfered less witb the labour markets, the laws of supply and demand, which obtain in other economic matters, would have in a simple and natural manner, regulated and adjusted them. That tbe New Zealand local bodies and " private enter priße " should relieve the Government of a burden they had neither hand nor voice in creating, is rather too mud to expect from frail humanity. Thu sudden surplussage of labour is uu lncky for even the present, the luckiest Ministry which has ever occupied the Treasury Benches. Even as in the old time, the hand writing is already on the wall, and those very men, the working classes, who raisetl up the Liberal Ministry to theii present elevation, will turn against them, and be as eager to overthrow ai they were to elevate.