South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, FEB. 21, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2161, 21 February 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, FEB. 21, 1880.

Next to the confiscated native land difficulty and Major Atkinson’s financial perplexities, the condition of the unemployed in the empire city of Wellington threatens to be one of the greatest bugbears with which the colony will have to deal. That a large amount of distress should exist in Wellington is no more than might be anticipated. Although the seat of Government, and the lap of many official luxuries, Wellington is undoubtedly one of the worst localities in which the unemployed could bo gathered. From any other centre such as Auckland, Christchurch, Timaru, Dunedin, Oamaru, or any part of the West Coast, the unemployed, when the worst comes to the worst, can usually disperse themselves and pick up a living of some kind, but with Wellington the case is different. Wellington has no back country beyond barren, bleak looking hills, where a mountain goat would starve, and besides the Civil Service feeding bottle, which keeps the educated spendthrift out of gaol, together with a few local works, it

presents no outlet for employment. The unemployed laborer in Wellington is about as badly off as a rat in a wire cage. He is walled in, and he must cither be fed by charity, or, what is much the same thing, labour must be created for him, or he is bound to starve. All during the winter just

oyer we heard, occasional nails from the unemployed in other parts of the Colony, but the cry of distress from Wellington was continuous and incessant. That public soup kitchens were not established near the Parliament buildings, argues strongly in favor of the presumption that the members of the charitable and municipal boards in that unhappy region arc cither flint-hearted, stiff-necked, or dull of apprehension. We arc glad, however, to find that they are doing the right thing at last, and that a famine fund has been opened on behalf of the immigrants and their families who arc suffering from privation. The distress that prevails at Wellington has onty to be made known properly, and we have no doubt subscriptions will flow in from every part of the Colony. The benevolent public, who at all times are ready to respond to the “ wail that is wafted across the troubled wave,” will scarcely turn a deaf ear to the hard times at their own door, and municipal bodies, and Church congregations will vie with each other in giving practical effect to that charity which covcrcth a multitude of transgressions.

But charity whether it assumes the form of private acts of benevolence, ostentatious alms-giving, the establishment of public soup-kitchens, or the invention of new roads should not be relied upon as a permanent remedy. We observe that in conjunction with the Famine Fund which the Good Samaritans of our colonial metropolis have, originated, the Colonial Treasurer has decided to donate a few roads to the starving applicants for work. A deputation which waited on him yesterday with the distressing information that two hundred immigrants were out of work were informed that “the Government had given the matter very serious consideration, and had come to the conclusion that the best tiling to be done was to provide work for the unemployed.” There is not the slightest doubt that in coming to such a sagacious conclusion the Government have excelled the wisdom of Solomon or the wise men of Gotham. Had they arrived at any other it is probable that, in the language of Tennyson, “ All the world would have wondered.” But the Colonial Treasurer adds, “ With this view the (the Government) had determined to proceed with the construction of a number of roads, and the contracts for the formation of these roads would be let at suitable prices to those who were unemployed at present.” In other words the Government has determined to put a few roads in the way of these unfortunate new chums in order that their mouths may be fed, and their famishing tongues sealed, at least for a a season. Now, while the action of the Colonial Treasurer of New Zealand may, like that of the Duchess of Marlborough in Ireland, be very commendable, we must question its prudence. If this roadmaking by the unemployed of Wellinton, like the roadmaking by the armed constables of the Waimatc Plains, is only a temporary expedient, or a means towards an end, the benevolence (at the expense of the rest of the country) which prompts it, may be pardoned. Hut if the roads arc not wanted, or if there is no pressing necessity for them beyond the necessity of manufacturing employment for this importunate deputation, we are bound to regard the remedy applied as one that constitutes a gross in justice to the rest of the colony. What district, we should like to know, is to have the benefit of the roads ? Are they to be made through Crown lands, or will they raise the value of property already disposed of ? Is the Government so very rich that it can multiply as it is doing, its standing army of road-makers in the North Island H Between charity, pure and simple, and robbery, there is a wide distinction, and we have no doubt the Colonial Treasurer is able to define it. He is also aware that there are unemployed in the South Island as well as at AVellington and that in addition to roads there are railway stations and goods sheds, and sidings and so forth, very badly wanted for the convenience of our farmers. But if taxes are collected at various ports where public works of a reproductive and necessary character are badly wanted, arc held in abeyance, and this money is spent in one particular spot, in carrying out works that are not urgently required, we would like Major Atkinson to say whether the proceeding resembles charity or robbery most strongly.

Deeply as we sympathise with the unemployed of Wellington, we canuot avoid deprecating the tuition which these unfortunates are undergoing, in being taught constantly to look to the Government for support. In an equal sense wc regard the steps taken to ameliorate their sufferings with apprehension. In the depth of winter, when farming operations were at a standstill; the Government might have been excused for interfering with the general labour market, on behalf of the destitute but willing. But just now the remedy that they are applying seems injudicious and inopportune. If instead of concentrating the Wellington unemployed on a few roads, that are probably not wanted, the Stella and Hinemoahad been used to distribute them in localities where there is an agricultural and pastoral back country to feed them wc would have given the Government credit for good sense. But we cannot conscientiously approve of the system that has been introduced of landingshiploads of immigrants in a place like Wellington, where there is no outlet for their labor, and then feeding them with roads at the expense of more necessitous

localities. The Minister of Public Works the other day, when interviewed about the miserable shaniy that does duty for u railway station and refreshment room at Timaru, pleaded the poverty 0 f the Government, but it docs not look like poverty when money is squandered on road works that are not provided for on the estimates. AVlmt is the Major’s little game ?