AN “UNEMPLOYED” HOAN OR SWINDLE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2611, 3 August 1881, Page 2

AN “UNEMPLOYED” HO AN OR SWINDLE.

Someone in tlie district (says- the “ Oatnaru Times ”) has perpetrated what

may be termed either a big joke or a big fraud at the expense of the unemployed, the community, probably our representatives in Parliament, and certainly Parliament itself. Quite recently a petition was presented to the Spealu r and members of the House of Eepresentatives, as from a large number of the unemployed at Oarnaru, Tho petition stated that the petitioners were actually starving for want of employment; that they were married men with large families, and could not for want of funds go elsewhere seeking for work ; that they had not previously made public their wants through being ashamed to own their destitution ; that through three years of dull times poverty had grown on them slow!}’, and that some of the petitioners were going about almost naked, while many of their wives and children were ill and could not get medical aid. Then the petitioners went on to say that if work could not be found for them in the colony, the Government might provide passages for them to Mr Proudfoot’s railway contracts in New South Wales, the Government to take their promissory notes in security for a refund of the passage money. The petition concluded with a request that Mr T. W. Parker, late Resident Magistrate, Mr T. A. Clowes, J.P., and Mr Gifford Moore should be appointed a committee to investigate the case of the petitioners and issue passages. Then came the signatures, and after them a postscript stating that there were several other pages of names which wore withheld. The signatures, it may be mentioned, were pasted on to the sheet of foolscap on which the petitions was written, and were honafide. But they had one striking peculiarity —scarcely any of them were those of working men, let alone tho unemployed. One was the autograph of a genial wholesale merchant in Tyne street, who is certainly neither underfed, ill clothed, nor married, nor, perhaps, we may add, likely to enter the blissful state —at least not just yet. Two of the signatures were those of gentlemen who have been dead three years ; one was that of a leading draper in Oamaru, another of a well-to-do hotel-keeper ; one that of a veterinary surgeon one of a blacksmith, and one of a master saddler, a bachelor, now in England. Certainly none of these gentlemen could justly describe themselves as unemployed, nor do wo suppose they would be eager to do so. The names have evidently been cut from some old memorial on some other subject, and attached to this unemployed petition either by way of hoax or swindle. The petition can scarcely have passed through the hands of either of our local representatives, for they would have been pulled up atonce by the signatures. Yet it would be interesting to know how it found its way .into Parliament. The petition has been referred by the Government to the Borough Council of Oamaru ; and we believe it can now be seen at the Council Chambers.