THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1880.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1984, 3 July 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1880.

The unemployed present at the meeting last night are to be congratulated upon having had the good sense to refuse to he led away hy the inflammatory arguments used by some of the speakers. It was sought to induce them to reject, in a way which might well be regarded as contemptuous, the offer of the Government made to“ thorn through their delegates, and again, on the other hand, they were asked to join in a movement to request the American Government to convoy them from these shores to America. Let us just for one moment consider the arguments brought forward in support of these two points. In the first place, the orator who suggested the stoppage of the traffic in Colombo street, by the unemployed sitting down in the road in preference to|earning a little money, entirely misstated the cast-. Ho put it that, having once worked at the wages offered by the Government, the men would always be bound to take them, and would never be able to ask for a higher rate of pay. This may sound all very well on the platform and was loudly applauded, but it will not bear the light of common sense. The Government offer these terms not because they want the work done, not because the country can afforded the expenditure, but merely as a temporary relief to enable the .men unemployed now to earn their living until better times come round. It is a course forced upon them by the exigency of the times, which they have to meet in the best manner possible. The wages offered are, it is true, not munificent but they, with the terms stated by the Government as to rations and assistance in building, will enable men to live aye and, if thrifty, to save a little money. Is not that better than spending their time hanging about the city listening to the frothy declamation of wouldbe orators as to the rights of Englishmen, &c. We say as the true friend of the working men—that is in contradistinction to a class of political adventurers who will use them while they are useful and then leave them—that the offer made by the Government is one that they should accept with a determination to make the best of circumstances. It affords them good shelter and means of subsistence for their families. What can those gentlemen who counselled declining these proposals give them in lieu of it ? Do they think for one moment that after having rejected the offer made by the Government —an offer, in the present circumstances of the colony, far more liberal than could have been expected—that the general public would have supported them in their mad schemes ? We say most unhesitatingly, ‘‘No,” and therefore it is that wo rejoice to find that wiser counsels prevailed. Now, as to this emigration project. Surely the unemployed are not so devoid of common sense as to think for one moment seriously that the United States Government would expend some £2OOO to introduce to their country a shipload of men without any capital but the ability to do a day’s work. Mr. Taylor, the United States Consul, put the matter clearly when ho said that the Government of that country had never paid one cent towards bringing people there and, also—which was one of the jioiuts of his remarks —that during one mouth of this year 45,000 persons arrived at one port in the United States. Do the unemployed wish for more conclusive evidence of the folly of tho proposed application than this ?

We should think not. Every one of us has to feel more or less the pressure of these bad times. On some they pross'|more hardly than others. But the unemployed cannot turn round and say, “Wo are alone in this difficulty.” Wo are glad indeed that the meeting adopted the course it did, despite the declamation of one or two. It proves that the great body of working men aro true to themselves, as they always will be if they do not allow men to stand forth as their leaders whoso advocacy only damages their cause. Some few remarks were made on village settlements and land on deferred payments, and it was said that information could be obtained respecting these matters. The Guide issued by the Government «t a small cost supplies all the information needed. Again, it was said that in village settlements wore going to be established, whore the land was not good. The Government are providing for the establishment of village settlements in connection with public works to bo done. It would bo useless to plant a settlement and got a number of people there without affording any chance of earning something. Hence the Government purpose establishing these settlements along new linos, so that men may obtain a start by working thereon and they may gradually bo enabled to become independent. That is the course emphatically reiterated by Mr. Rolleston, and yet people get up at these meetings and say nothing is going to bo done. It is of course impossible for the Government to grant settlements where the land has already been bought. They must go where the land is still in the hands of the Crown. Under the present proposals the Government calculate that they will absorb some five hundred men, which ought, so far as Christchurch is concernod, practically put an end to the unemploj*d2difficulty, and we believe the timo will yet come when tho majority of these men—if they exercise care, thrift, and prudence—will be comfortably settled upon land of their own, and become in their turn employers of labor.