WAGES FOR THE UNEMPLOYED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 4, Issue 240, 12 September 1883, Page 2

WAGES FOR THE UNEMPLOYED.

In our telegrams from Chrisfccburch yesterday, it was stated that 70 ofthe unemployed had made application for work at the railway works at Addington, and sone of them bad been set to work at the muni6cent sum of 4s 6<l per day. Writing on this subject, a Southern contemporary says :— " Daring the dreadful wea«her of the past week i^was dreadful to think of the many people out of vork. The cause is ho doubt hut temporary, being only a period of depression, which is a thing inseparable from all colonial progress. But that is the chief reason why special provision should be ;made by the State for meeting the These are the dead: points m the machinery of industry: which cannot.be got over without assistance. The railway relief works are very well. But aB public money has been voted for railways, and the railways are worth full value, and will always be so, a decent rate should be given a* pay. If that were sure, then the distress would be abated before next harvest m the most happy way. To get the work done at starvation rates simply because the people are starving, is mean. It is not mistaken meanness, but deliberate meanness. AH responsible governments are mean, and they are only meaner than representative legislatures. The secret is that the sense of responsibility is too much for the averagt-man j it dwarfs him and cripples him, and debases him. Miais r terial and Parliamentary majorities consist of the average man. For the same reason it is that no Company has either a soul to be saved or a body to be kicked. We hope that on this occasion, if duly encouraged by the Press of the Colony, the Government will rise superior to tbe collective meannesb which dominates even the most generous individual natures. But it is not generosity that is expected. It is reason and businesslike common sense. 0