South Canterbury Times, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2337, 13 September 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1880.

What is to be clone with the unemployed ? is a question frequently asked in this colony. The problem is one that demands the most serious consideration. The social condition of the industrial orders in this colony is sickly in the extreme. We know of no other colony under the British flag where a similar state of affairs exists. Even Great Britain, with her wealthy pauperising institutions cannot boast anything like the proportion of idle hands that we find in New Zealand. In every large centre of population the number of unemployed can be counted by We believe we are correct in saying that outside the Civil Service the majority of our breadwinners earn a most precarious livelihood. Many of our artizans are idle half their time. Not a few are dependant on meteorological phenomena or the state of the money market for the thickness of their bread and butter. Wet days make terrible inroads on the wages of out of door laborers, while living in tents and sleeping on straw in the depth of winter make equally sad havoc with their constitutions. Uuskilled labor is in a fluctuating and unsatisfactory condition. It is constantly going begging, and it is generally treated as one of the most worthless of articles. Nor are the circumstances of the agricultural laborer much better than those of the pick and shovel man. Eveiy successive harvest witnesses a diminution of wages, and a decrease in the demand for employment. Immigrants from the agricultural districts of the old country pumped into the colony with borrowed Government capital on the one hand, and reaping and binding machines on the other, have tended to make employment scarce and labor un-

profitable. Tne skilled branches are not much better off. Heavy all round taxes —abominable imposts on the raw necessaries of trade—have a depressing effect on the manufacturer. The eccentricities and fluctuations of the money market have a depressing effect on enterprise, and the capitalist either transfers his capital elsewhere, or goes in for speculative investments, in preference to substantial improvements. Thus, it comes about that skilled artisans, sober and thrifty, carpenters mechanics and builders, who in other parts of the world find constant and remunerative employment, are in New Zealand half their time idle, or working for what the Government calls “ sub" sistence wages.”

We are not intensifying the sombre shades of a gloomy picture. The condition of labor in New Zealand is sufficiently sad to render exaggeration unnecessary". It is with reluctance that wo allude to it. Wc would rather, if we could do so conscientiously", prodube a prospect more charming and more in accordance with the sketches of immigration agents. What we have given is a plain unvarnished statement of facts. Our political pilots talk glibly of the immense industrial resources of the colony, and they point to the industrial crises of the past as indicative of the evanescent character of the present depression. But hopes deferred make the heart sick. The industrial depression from which the colony" is suffering is no novelty-. It has been in existence for nearly two y-cars, and it shows no signs of passing away speedily-. The prospects of the industrial classes never looked more gloomy than they" do at this moment. Admitting that the resources of the Colony" arc practically unlimited, can it bo said that that the right means have been taken to promote their dovclopemcnt ? Has legislation been so directed as to widen the area of employment? For what purpose has an enormous national debt been created ? It is true we have railways and public works to shew for our borrowed millions, but what about immigration ? Wc have been spending money" lavishly", bringing labor into the country ; arc we endeavoring to induce that labor to remain ? What is the tale told by the passenger traffic of intercolonial steamers ’? Three y"eavs ago we had two arrivals from {Sydney" and Melbourne for every" departure. Now the tabic is rc\ ersed witli a vengeance, and wc find three departures for every arrival. It is no. use of the political rulers of New Zealand to bury their head's ostrich-like and sing the old song of brighter clays in store-.. If the prosperity" of New Zealand is not to decline still more than it has done, steps must be taken to stop the leak before she is water-logged. The colony has been drifting helplessly of late, and it is time that an earnest determined, and patriotic crow manned the vessel.

it will be asked how is a change to be effected ? How is the exodus to bo checked ? The disease may seem incurable, but the remedy is really simple. New Zealand is suffering from aa industrial famine. Her resources for manufacturing are illimitable, but the hand that would develop them is prostrated. If the- bone and sinew of the colony is not going to be driven out of it immediate steps must be taken to throw open new fields of employment’'; and bjr encouraging the application of kuhour and capital to reconcile the labourer to his new home. As population diminishes taxation must fall with increasingweight on the few that remain. There i is a simple means, however, by which j we submit the position of New Zealand may speedily be improved. The polic} r under which the State ship has been drifting must be changed. Taxation and retrenchment have been so directed j as to oppress and disgust the industrial I classes. The taxation screw must be reversed. Labor must be freed { and unemployed capital must bear its fair share of the burden. We have neither free trade nor protection in New Zealand, but we have- something far worse than either, an all-round tariff, which, like the Civil Service ten per cent reductions, crushes everything before it.. The Government of New Zealand must take a leaf from The Council of the Otago University. That body manages to |knock a: magnificent revenue out of its land/ end’owments. With proper management the Government of the colony should be able to make the laud revenue contribute to the relief of an overburdened, overtaxed, severely discouraged’ and partially pauperised industrial population.