WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN?

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8351, 11 February 1913, Page 6

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN?

The casual correspondent occasionally makes a valuable contribution to the ” flow of reason ” in. the columns of the newspaper press, and apropos of the closing of a portion of the I'rimlcy canning factory, a thoughtful gentleman at Takapau offers some reasonable and instructive reflections. It is because there are comparatively few children in Hawke’s Bay, he suggests, and nob in consequence of the superior education of the boys and girls, that Mr tsasil Jones cannot get the youthful pickers and cauners that his commercial soul yearns for. And then the observant commentator proceeds to point tno moral in tolling pnraseology. hasten to this indictment; " Vast areas ot land are held in Hawke's Day and elsewhere by a lew people. What are they doing to increase the young population! A child belonging to any of their workers is scarcely admitted on to any of their stations. They advertise lor married couxiies simply because they get them cheaper, but in most cases they must not have any children. ‘ Absolutely no accommodation for a child’ is the reply, of one who advertised for a couple. Where in the name of common-sense is the population to be reared if not in the country? One can drive for miles and miles in fine, agricultural country in some parts of Hawke’s Bay and never have the pleasure of looking on a child. Can any country survive under such conditions? What is the cause? Nothing but pure selfishness. Those wealthy people do not want to be disturbed. They can get sufficient nomadic single labour to do their station work with the help of immigration paid for by the workers themselves. It is much more convenient and cheaper that way than to build cottages where families could he reared. But it is against the laws of nature and of God. What principle or conscience can people have who want people to marry but must not have children ? The scarcity of young labour is the effect, and will continue to bo more and more felt until such detestable conditions are altered. Let the workers themselves look to it, and draw themselves together and appoint someone as their political leader for the next election. They have nothing to look for from the class of men that the Williamses and Joneses represent. The workers on stations at present are not living the life that God intended them to live. They may have plenty to eat, but so have the cattle and sheep. Man is a domestic animal and wants a home of his own, however small. At present they are herded together, and there is no privacy in their lives. They have all to eat from the same board, and they must have no will of their own. Their appearance shows it if they have been for any length of time on a station. The ‘ boss' is as autocratic as any Czar of all the Russias. ‘He is monarch of all he surveys,’ and acts accordingly. But sooner or later they will be 1 hoist with their own petard' if they delude themselves with the belief that ‘ God’s Own Country ’ was made specially for them.”