Hard Times in Christchurch.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 1442, 31 August 1885, Page 2

Hard Times m Christchurch.

I The "■Wellington Press gives the foli lowing pictureof the state of things at Ghristchurch .-—Making full allowance for exaggeration and mis-apprehension, there is no denying, we fear, ;thaf the depression m the South is very Revere indeed. There has probably never been anything like it for the last seventeen years. It is no longer depression m the ordinary sense of slack times and scarcity of money. It has got long pasfctbat; 1 It amouts to a complete stagnation of trade, accompanied by widespread commercial failure, and a deplorable amount of commercial distress. We are assured by those who are thoroughly well acquainted with the circumstances, that the poverty at Christcbureh is now of the kind which actually involves much bodily suffering-. Great numbers of people aro without means of livelihood. We hoar the most grievous stories of respeotable families occupying enipty houses after losintr all their furniture j and subsisting entirely on charity. i There has been no unemployed agitation this winter. The loafing element is eonspicious by its absence. The noisy digcontent of the idler and dependant has been succeeded m grim earnest by thereal misery of the industrious and selfrespecting classes. The inevitable ef. fects of the wild speculation which necessarily accompanied the expenditure of the borrowed millions, have been intensified by the collapse of the grain market* The resources of the community are strained to the utmost— overstrained m order to pay the interest on moneyborrowed to buy land which yields no> profit, but is farmed at a loss. Hence every branch of business suffers, aod m some branches there is riot merely heavy loss, but absolute paralysis, the embarrassed or penniless people have not th& means either ef living, where they are or ot going away to. other places where oils cumstances are more favorable. They drag on a. miserable existence from day to day, gerting more and more deeply Vrta &}&> and only saved from utter rieswA pajr by a vague hope— steadily diminish.lagpthat something way fora tm to afford them relief, .