The Feilding Star. Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1895. HARD TIMES.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 250, 25 April 1895, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1895. HARD TIMES.

Tiie laboring classes of all descriptions in New Zealand have been and are experiencing " hard times," but when their position is compared with that of their fellows in New South Wales the latter have much the worst of the trouble. We are told by the Sydney Telegraph that there were on a recent day 638 men employed on the relief works at the Centennial Park reserve, and as a fresh relay of " half-day men" were to come on in tbe afternoon and join those who worked the day out, j one might safely estimate the total at ■ over 1000 men. From these numbers,

and from the fact that in less than a month between 2000 and 3000 men i have been ticketed on and off there, ' an idea may be formed of the volume . of distress in the city ; for these men . are only paid in rations — it is a case of working for food. This is the scale . of employment and payment : — Single men work half a day for one ration (4Vb bread, 31b meat, 21b sugar, and ; 40/ i tea) and receive one tin milk ; married men without family work one day for two rations, one tin milk and 21b rice, sago, or oatmeal ; married men with one child, one clay and a half for three rations, one tin milk, and 41b rice, etc. ; with two children, one day and a half, three rations, one tin milk, and 61b rice, &c. ; with three children or four, two days for iouv rations, one tin milk, and 71b rice, etc. ; with five children or six, two days and a half for five rations, two tins milk, and 71b rice, &c. ; with seven children or eight, three clays for six rations, two tins milk, and 71b rice, etc. The object of the work is, primarily, charity. Indeed, many of the men who go there [ and put in a half day or a clay, according to their right, are, the Telegraph says, as unfit for the work as the pig is unfit to swim. In this connection our contemporary the Lyttleton Times j anticipates that the position is certain to be much worse as the winter advances, and a further influx of population to New Zealand may be expected in the course of the next three months. Should this prove to be the case, the condition of our own unemployed will be made worse, unless the proposals of the Government to absorb the surplus labor in co-operative works are carried out, and prove succcessful. The knowledge that the Government have declared their intention to provide work will be an additional incentive to the unemployed in the other colonies to flock to New Zealand,