COLONIAL WORKERS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2006, 15 February 1907, Page 3

COLONIAL WORKERS

VIEWS OF A RUSSIAN SOCIALIST. A representative of the Lyttelton Times had an interview with M. Senohius Peschkoff, a young Russian, who has been travelling through New Zealand for the past two months with a companion, studying the conditions of the colonial working man. M. Peschkoff has been away from Russia for about two years and a-lialf, during which period he has . visited Canada, the United States, and other parts of tho world. He belongs to a literary circlo in Russia, and is, of course, an advanced, socialist. It came as something of a shock to find that he did not regard New Zealand as a paradise for the working man. He and his companion landed in Auckland, and walked to Napier, for the purpose of gathering first-hand impressions from the workers they met. Then they . found their way gradually South', staying everywhere in the cheapest lodgingliouses, and mixing with the poorest grade of workers. M. Peschkoff has arrived at the conclusion that the New Zealand working man is little, if any, better off than the worker of any other country. “I am not a materialist,”- he said, with a deprecating slirug of his shoulders. “x on must excuse me, but I- want to take your people and say to them how bad they live. • Thoy So not read; they work hard. Your manual laborers work harder than do the laborers in Canada or America. Then they go home to their rooms. Have you seen those bedrooms ? There is a bed and a little bit of candle. They must go out, and where shall they go? Your libraries,” and another expressive slirug finished the sentence. “We have been along the road travelling from Auckland to Napier,” lie continued. “The farm laborer works hard all day, and he is cut off from companionship. -He should have a homo but wo found be often has what you call a little whare. The wliarc looks so bad; so very, very bad. Y’ours is a young country, and the men look forward and are apparently content to live as they do.” “Are the European workers better off?” asked the reporter. “They are far more advanced.’ said M. Peschkoff. “In Europe the workers road and think, and have all the freedom they want. Of course, the conditions are unsettled in Germany at present, and in a few years there will be some changes there. You have high wages here, but the cost of living is high, and tho worker gains nothing. Your homes are not better than the homes of Canada and America. In Tornto and Ottawa I saw no slums like the slums I saw in Wellington and Auckland.