The Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) Suivant la verite. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1883. THE UNEMPLOYED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 25, 28 December 1883, Page 2

The Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) Suivant la verite. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1883. THE UNEMPLOYED.

The question of the unemployed has again cropped up m the Middle Island, It certainly does seem, a strange anomaly that while m" many parts of the North Island labour is exceedingly scarce, and farmers are anxiously anticipating a lack of men during the harvest, m Otago and Canterbury there should be serious complaints of dearth of employment. The strangest part of the matter is that generally this cry of "no work to do" is heard m the winter season, but on this occasion it is raised at the busiest time of the year. From Wellington we hear on the one hand, of contractors searching m vain for men for permanent employment at a high rate of wages ; and on the other of men earning good wages abandoning their employment to go South (where all these unemployed are) m order, it is presumed, to obtain still better remuneration for their labour. These abnormal peculiarities of the features of supply and demand m the labour market aro difficult to reconcile or explain. If the cry ;s now heard of want of employment, what may be expected m three months time ? But is there anything real m this agitation by the "unemployed.' 1 When we read that 50 of them accepted employment at 27s a week, it looks as if there were. But again tho question may arise, Do these so-called unemployed really belong to the working classes 1 Can they labour with their hands ? Or are they of the glass who ostensibly search for work while all j-he time hoping tb,ey may not get it T Or, to propound one more hypothesis, Is the cry merely an agitation for Government expenditure iv the South Island ? At a meeting of the unemployed m .Christchurch the other day, Mr J. O'SufcUVAN said he had asked Messrs Holmes aud White (local members) to look into the matter. Every man should come forward and say, "We shall have our lights." (Applause.) All should have the necessaries of life, and if they could not get thorn by fair play, they could get them— ■— . They all knew what way he meant. (Applause and laughter.) There was no work because the Government said there was no mouey. Where, m the name of goodness, had all the n»nP°F S on P P ? (Voice :" {n their pockety and to the North Island,' 1 ) As the Ashburton Guardian points out: — "The political aspect of the agitation indeed pervaded the whole meeting, and there was an entire

absence of a genuine expression of unemployed and destitute persons." Men m real distress would accept even 27s a week till something better turned up, m preference to remaining idle oi | piteously appealing to the Government. Our southern contemporary goes oh to remark: — One matter which U quite unaccountable m the circumstances is, that every mail lately has taken to England a large "number of nominations, the persons nominated being I" brought out at the expense of the Government. If recent protestations be true, public expenditure will be-re-quired to prevent these same people from starving m the districts to which they have qeen conveyed at the public expense. Looked at m this light, tho nomination bf immigrants and the cry abontr want of employment are contradictory j and it is difficult to avoid tbe conclusion, either that the talk about want of work, &c.,' Is utterly fallacious, or that what appears to be the nomination of friends m -the home country by colonists here, is unreal, and that these nominations must be attributed either to large capitalists or to some cause not readily discovered. If there be any truth m the allegations made about the general scarcity of employment m Canterbury and Otago, why did not the Government long ago prevent deluded immigrants beiug sent to those districts ? A grave cbaYge of dereliction of duty lies at the door of the Government for allowing hundreds of immigrants to lie landed m the two Southern provinces for months past, when the loGal labour market was already overstocked. Many of these ira> migrants -were landed m the first instance at Auckland, where ; they could have got profitable employment at once, and yet they were sent South atf the expense of the colony, to a slow process of star vation.if thei statements made to the Hon. Mr Mitchelson bo true. It is no doubt the boun den duty of the Government to endeavour to- obviate privation and suffering from want of employment, but it is also their duty iv doing so to keep m mind many important considerations. They must be j quito sure that they are not yielding to a mere political clamour. They must not, m the present financial condition of the^colony, spend public money on useless works, simply to keep men employed m the. districts where they happen to be.