The Unemployed in Sydney

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 199, 16 April 1887, Page 8

The Unemployed in Sydney

Another deputation of the unemployed has waited on the Premier in Sydney. The chief spokesman, E. J. Edwards, a carpenter, stated that he had lived for about 25 years in Australia, out of which time he had been 10 years in this colony. He had been requested to lay before the Premier the painful condition in which the married unemployed found themselves, more particularly through their being unable to obtain piecework of any kind, and from being, as a consequence, compelled to reside away from the metropolis. Their object was to ask the Government to give married men day work of any sort somewhere whence they could return home at night to their families — even if at a lower rate of wages. At the present rate of 6s per day it was absolutely impossible for married men to live. Fifteen shillings a week was the loAvest average rent, and what was then left to support a man, a wife, and several children ? The deputation were satisfied to leave the matter entirely with the Government. They would accept day work, even if it was only 5s per day, rather than starve and see their children starving. To live, at present, was really a terrible task, and hundreds of men in New South Wales were led to desert their homes. The worst part of it, too, was that when once this fatal step of wrong doing was taken, many became hardened, and they never felt the necessity and duty of coming back. Henry Pudsley, a bricklayer ; Hayes, a house-joiner ; Eugene Diversion, and James M'Sweeney, spoke to the same purport. Pudsley said that since last Christmas his earnings had not exceeded 30s, and at present he was obliged to support himself and his family by sacrificing his personal effects. He gathered that altogether from 300 to 400 bricklayers were in pressing need of work. James M'Sweeney, engineer and fitter, handed the Premier certificates from his late employers, Hudson Brothers, in whose service he had been for more than two years. Work at his trade was so little in demand that shops formerly employing 10 or 12 men did not now keep more than two or three in their service. Sir Henry Parkes, referring to the wish of some of the members of the deputation that they might be provided with work sufficiently near to Sydney so as to enable them to enjoy the society of their families at the close of the day's work, said that the men must at once see how difficult it would be for the country to find work for them carrying the conveniences they desired,. He was extremely sorry to see so many apparently respectable men, each professing a trade, unable to find employment. It was no* his province at that interview to point out the causes which had tem--porarily checked the prosperity of the colony ; but one thing was certain, and that was that men like those he saw before him were amongst the most valuable citizens in any country, as labour was a country's most vital need. The men could see for themselves in and about; Sydney properties neglected because of the inability of the owners to employ labour for their profitable working ; hence* the distress of the working men could ! not arise from the fact that there was in ourj market a glut of labours but that from 'some, disjointed condition of affairs our industrial pursuits were temporarily paralysed. Ifcnad been /said in the Legislative Assembly the other night,' that the. 1 present land law had put a stop to, the employment' of men on nearly all the stations ; and it were true, it was,' easily understood that the large numbers so, thrown on their resources would $ urn their •attention to and fill up other avenues of employment, inconveniencing those who, were there already. He would, however^ bring their case before the Government.