DISTRESS IN TIMARU.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2542, 14 May 1881, Page 2

DISTRESS IN TIMARU.

[to the editor.] Sib, —Any person taking up and reading the daily papers of this town must certainly be struck with the strangeness of the subjects used by correspondents. Ido not say it is waste of pen, ink, and paper to write to you about the Chinese invasion or about the vagaries of the Cemetery Cotnraissioneis, but I do think that such men as Mr Kiraber and others, that have a flow of words at the end of their pen, might choose for their subject the present state of the labor market as connected with ourselves. Now, Sir, no person would believe or ever conceive the amount of distress there is in this town of Timara. In this enlightened town, this town of large warehouses, salerooms, and stores, in this town of churches and chapels, in this town where so many preach and pray, the amount of distress existing is something appalling. Mind, Sir, I am not making these assertions at random. Ask Archdeacon Harper, or any clergyman of any denomination ; ask those that go amongst it, and they will tell you what the Timaru public are kept in ignorance of and what the Timaru Press is silent on, viz., the silent starvation of hundreds. Mind, Mr Editor, when I say the Press is silent, I do not blame them, for the reporters don’t visit the poor ; they don’t go into the back streets ; they don’t go into a laborer’s house ; you can’t expect them to. They must keep to the main streets, the wharves, &c., &c., and pick up news, not go into the poor man’s hut and write of his wrongs. MiEditor, if a reporter was to go down on the beach or wharf, early in the morning, he would see strong, healthy men creeping out of holes, out of wheat stacks, and from under tarpaulins at break of day, creeping out, afraid of being seen, and yet willing to work ; afraid that any person should know where they slept, and yet willing to work , with no money for breakfast, and yet willing to work ; with nowhere but the sea and rain puddles to wash in, and yet willing to work, but unable to get it. Now, Sir, you may think I am stretching the long bow, but ask for yourself, and you will find many a father of a family, with a forced smile on his face, looking for a job. Day after day tells the some tale. He is not going to trumpet his woes to every passer-by. But pick out some of them and get them quietly by themselves, and then hear what they will tell you. You may judge the truth of their yarns when you see the little tear drop in the corner of their eye grow gradually bigger, and ah, it drops, and a handkerchief and a stern resolve stops the stream that would otherwise flow, for nothing makes a strong man weak so much as to have to tell his troubles to other people. This, Sir, is the subject that should be taken up, for I say it is shameful, it is degrading that in a colony like this men should want bread. That it is sometimes their own fault I do not deny; but even then what is the Chinese question or the late opium war to them when they want bread ? Why should the people unite and demand from Government any stoppage of Chinese or interfere in any foreign matter while such an important matter so near home requires ventilation ? I ask you, Sir, to use your pen and take up the subject I have started, and not only my thanks but the thanks of hundreds will be tendered you.—l am, &c., H. E. BOARDMAN.

[The wrtter of the above letter takes an extremely short-sighted view of the Chinese question. The present temporary depression in the labor market is as nothing compared with what the laborer would have to encounter should there be a large iuflux of Mongolians, He would not have to face periodical times of depression, but have to compete with labor so cheap that to a white man with a family it would mean starvation, Ed. S. 0. Times.]