ROUGHING IT IN NEW ZEALAND.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8804, 4 May 1907, Page 4

ROUGHING IT IN NEW ZEALAND.

(From the Westminster Gazette.) There are some interesting passages in a letter just received by the Central (Unemployed) Body for London from an engineer's handy mtin , : who, with his wife and little boy, were sent to New Zealand aiter heiug three months out of work. The arrival a* Wellington was not calculated to cheer the hearts of the

emigrants:— . , Tf We arrived on a Sunday. it rained'hard all The peop!e on ci,r.rp q-iid ij was like that six (lays m\t of the seven, and it nearly broke the hearts of some of them on board. I heard two say, "I shan't get off; 1 T'll So back again. " When Monday LorSing camo we went and found the Labour Bureau. We were sent to a room to sit down. There srere about 20 of us, all bent for tlie Main Trunk line. About eight ot us looked like working men; but the others, with cuffs and collars, and ' tie* and a black ring around their : -necks where they had been washing * with them on, they didn t look much fit for pulling about mud anr. muck , although they hked to keep ! a little under their collars and ties . Well, Mr Mackay, the superintendent, looked aroundl rnd said to?! few of tli-80 lady-chf.S =rs "What ' can von do?" And they said, We 1 can use a pick and shove , sir. Alcl

he said. "You don't look limcli like 1 pick and shovel mm." And ore ot them, with trie dies rnd leggings on, and a collar pushing In;; dim up so that he was looking at t e C3ilmg instead «.f at Mr Mackay m the face, said, "I have dug trendies m South Vf rica, sir.'' Ten men were wanted for making concrete, so he took the names of eight of us and two of the The others wore sent on to Auckland. The arrival of the little party at Taihapo, a railway journey ot 100 miles, for which the men's fares were advanced by the Government and stopped out of their first month s salary was not devoid of incident. We got to Taihape some time in the night . It was then a small town at the rail-head, hut now the lino is far away up in the mountain?. Well. I have heard of being up to my knees in mud, but I was never in it before. There are no roads out here in the country. They can't get any stone to make them, but as the line goes on they open up quarries and gravel-pits. Whoa we got out of the tram we had to find lodgings, and it was pitch dark. There was a bit ct a path to lead down to whore the houses wore, and we followed that and came to a boardinghouse, knocked up the poople.f-and inquired for beds, tic could put up the men, but he had no room for a woman, and 1 hail my wife and child with me. He

to'kl me a woman "across the road had room for us. Well, I went to go across this "road" and down I went up to my knees m mud! -J----had to carry my wii'o across; tout there it was—proper, good mud. There wore drays and waggons alongside the road waiting for the mud to dry up. They were buried up to the body. The unhappy "lady-chasers had a bad time on arrival at the cement works. . ~ , Tliat night we slept m the cement *hed It was full up, and we had to <>-o on the top. I knew the way to rough it , and so did a few more ot them; tout, oh! the poor ladychasers. They could not see out ot (heir eves the next morning. They had caught a cold. There had been a sharp frost in the night, and their trousers were wet atocve the knees the clay before. In the [morning they were so stiff they couldn't

get their legs through them. These hardships, however, were not Without substantial reward. We got 9s a day digging out foundations, and 8s a yard putting in concrete. Twelve of us put 111 40 yards a day—that is 20s 8d each. That is thrown in with the day's work. It works out to 15s or 10s a day. Not toad. Of course, we can't go on concreting every day; we have to get it ready first. Out of the- ten of us that were : sent up here there are five left—myself and four Devonians. I started work on June 2 and up to January 3 I had saved exactly £SO. If a man wants more than that he ought to have nothing. If fall is well I hope to too settled down on a spot of land, atoout 3CO acres. lam applying to the Govern-

ment for it now. It costs about £ls or £2O a year. The bush has got to toe cleared. You can sell the timber that is on it for £8 to £lO an acre. Then bum the rest, and down with your grass seed on the top of the ashes. It is up in no time.? L , It is no use for a man to cone out hero unless he knows what, work is. The ' colony is not up yet, and men are wanted who can swing an axe or use a pick and shovel. If they find themselves up here in the bush, and can do neither, they will commit suicide Tsvo chaps ended their misery like this not long ago. It is hard to realise that the writer* was stranded in London without a penny to bless himself with so short a time ago. The Unemployed Body, not without reason, regard the £22 10s spent upon the emigration of this family as a particularly sound investment.