THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2393, 17 November 1880, Page 3

THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.

— A London correspondent writes : It is some time since I was in New Zealand, and the accounts that arc coming Home of soup kitchens and the unemployed are so different from all one’s experience of the colony that I hardly knowwhat to make of them. Still I believe that the New Zealand bad is bettci than the English good, if people did but know it. I thought so in conversing with a London uoikman the ■other day. He is a watchmaker, employed in one of the leading houses. Eor special merit he has two Exhibition medals, which I saw. He has been tno years with his present employers, and has obtained the maximum salary here. His wages arc 32s per week. For two rooms he pays 7s per week, and in these two rooms, himself, wife, and six children are crowded. When the rent is paid he has 3s Old per head for food clothes, gas, lire, doctor, schooling, and contingences. Reefsteak costs Is 3d per lb, and leg of mutton Is per lb. I cannot but think that if. wages in the colony come down much lower still (which I hope wou’l'happen) that a day laborer in New Zealand is incomparably better off than a skilled mechanic here. Existence is only possible in this country to the bulk of people by a careful screwing economy, which so far as I have seen is hardly known in the Colonies. I)r Rernado calculates the cost of a child in his home at 7s 3d per week ; yet tens of thousands of laboring people here have to keep their children upon a third of that. Last Saturday night I saw a sight here which started these reflections. About 10. 30 I was passing a butcher’s shop. Round one of the windows was a clamorous crowd of perhaps 70 women and children. They were holding up handkerchiefs and bags, and begging the butcher to take them. In each one which he took he put a handful of bits and scraps, for which the recipient paid 3d. It was sad to hear the clamor “ take mine, sir,” “ here, please, mine,” and to see the joy when they were accepted as customers. That is one way that people live here. Many of the women, pinched and yellow though they were, looked thoroughly respectable. They were not beggars, nor of that class. They were buying their Sunday’s dinner —their one bit of extravagance during the seven days !