South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2465, 11 February 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1881.

We observe by our Dunedin exchanges that the well-known indefatigable contractor, Mr David Droudfoot, is advertising for 1200 men to proceed to New South Wales. The invitation to blacksmiths, carpenters, fencers, and navvies, is well calculated to tempt not a few of those who have lately been buffeted by the winds of adversity in New Zealand to try a change of climate. They are asked to proceed to the scone of Mr Proud foot’s halfmillion railway contract, and they are promised three year’s steady employment. . The locality is described as admirably adapted for settlement, and being 40U0 feet above the sea level, it is cool and salubrious. The details are ample on all subjects but one, and that is the important question of wages. Why so much reticicncc should be displayed on a matter which a contractor of Mr Proudfoot's experience must know is of primary importance to the working man, we arc at a loss to understand. Equally difficult is it to conceive why, in bis search for workmen, the contractor should turn his back on the colony where the railway is about to be constructed, and look towards New Zealand, We know for a fact—from private advices of a most reliable character winch we arc periodically receiving—that there are numbers of the very kind of tradesmen that Mr Proudfoot is in quest of, looking vainly for employment in Sydney and its suburbs. If labor can be found on the spot, why then is Mr Proudfoot endeavoring to import

it from New Zealand ? Why these alluring 1 advertisements in the Dunedin papers? What has prompted this sagacious contractor to inaugurate this immigration scheme? We attach ‘some importance to this move on the part of Mr Prondfoot, because we esteem his attitude a matter of public concern. Times have been bad with the working classes in New Zealand, and although they are slowly recovering there is a good deal of distress in the colony at this moment. Reapers and binders have played havoc with the intellectual harvester, and a large number of working men who used to make a good rise out of the harvest fields are in a dinppointed, desponding frame of mind. The shrewd contractor has, we presume, a keen eye to business. He has laid a very appetising spread before them. Situation, climate, and steady employment, are exceedingly attractive in their way. Rut what about the money ? How about wages ? A pure atmosphere, robust health, and hard work with plenty of it, will not provide food, clothing, or other comforts. Working men are just as well off earning what the members of the Government felicitiously call ( * sustenance wages ” on the railAvays of New Zealand near the sea level, as earning a scant livelihood at an elevation of 4000 feet in New South Wales. Mr Proud foot may he actuated by a desire to assist the unemployed in New Zealand, but avc have no doubt his own interest is in the foreground. We have no desire to discourage anybody, although we would certainly regret the loss of 1200 ablebodied men to New Zealand. With Jill the hard times and dearth of employment, such a loss Avould be a serious thing for the colony. Our population is not so big that avc can well afford to give 1200 able-bodied carpenters, blacksmiths, and navvies to Mr Prondfoot or any other speculative individual Avho chooses to take contracts out of the colony. If Mr Prondfoot succeeds it Avill be a bad thing for Ncav Zealand, and avc do not knoAV that it will he a particularly good thing for the emigrants.

Wo trust that the 1200 working men for whom Mr Proudfoot is hungering at present will pause before they accept his offer. There are good reasons why, in this instance, they should look before leaping. Let them think of the wages part of the question. If men arc wanted and the contractor is willing to pay for them, they arc ready on the spot. We are sure that the working men of New Zcalan 1 have no wish to take the bread from the lips of their fellowtoilers in New South Wales by creating a temporary glut in the labor market of that colony. It is only a few months since the wages difficulty in Dunedin led to the introduction by Mr Proudfoot of a novelty called the steam-navvic. Has the stcam-navvie proved a failure, or is the salubrity of the climate at a height of •IOUOft. too much for his iron constitution ? Is human sweat after all so much more economical than steam that Mr L’roudfoot, as the result of his late experiment,has to fall back on his own flesh and blood. No doubt there arc many discontented workers in the colony who are anxious to proceed anywhere if they can only secure employment. We would console them if we could by telling them that the tide of misfortune is turning —that the winter of their discontent will soon pass over. But we know that“ while the grass is growing the steed is starving.” Nothing unnerves a man so much as want of employment and a taste of famine. But wc would advise the desponding, when they cast their eyes over this carefully worded advertisement, to beware of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Let them remember the steam navvie, and make a definite bargain with this Now Zealand Brcgdcn about the wages they are to receive before they think of exchanging a fertile soil and healthy, temperate climate for an elevated site amidst the sun-dried plains of Australia.