THE UNEMPLOYED.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2592, 12 July 1881, Page 2

THE UNEMPLOYED.

[to the editor] Sir, —Would you be so kind as to allow me space in your valuable paper to say a word or two concerning the unemployed? Now, Sir, can you or any one else inform me what we are to do or how we are to live under the present state of affairs. Is it possible that in a young and beautiful country like New Zealand men have to leave, as they are doing daily, because they cannot find enough to support themselves with here. A country that is overflowing with the very best of food —enough to support ten times its present population —and yet hundreds of men, the real bone and sinew of the country, are living to-day in a state of half starva* tion ; walking the streets of the town day after day, with despair in their faces. The Government has been applied to for work. They say that they cannot give any, but will open charitable institutions. That sort of thing may do well enough for those that are too old or unable to work. But it is an insult to the working man that wants to live independent and respectable. Now, the question is, can anything be done in the way of finding work or are we to starve in a land of plenty; that will have to be answered before long. Have we been induced to leave our homes and come sixteen thousand miles to be fed on charity? Many of us would have been in good situations at the present time in the Old Country had it not been for the promises held out to us in New Zealand, and how have they been kept ? By turning us out into the country like a lot of sheep to run from one end of the islands to the other, having no fixed place of abode, no place allotted to us where we could make a home, and to be branded as [oafers because we have no resting place and no work. This is what we have got for breaking up our homes and coining to a country where we were told we could get land for next to nothing, and could make our fortunes in about two years. It is rather hard on us. but if we have not got anybody here to see us righted, we have got friends in the Old Country. And if the unemployed of New Zealand are not found something to do shortly, we will appeal to our Government at Horae, and tell them how we have been treated and ask them to fetch us back to our homes again, leaving those who have those large blocks of lands to keep them, and pay the debt of the county the best w r ay they can. By giving this insertion you will greatly oblige.—l am, &c.

A SUFFERER.