UNEMPLOYED AT. CHRISTCHURCH. A MINISTERIAL REBUKE. Christchurch, December 15.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 326, 19 December 1888, Page 4

UNEMPLOYED AT. CHRISTCHURCH. A MINISTERIAL REBUKE. Christchurch, December 15.

Yesterday a deputation of unemployed interviewed the Mayor, stating that they could not get work since their return from Kaikoura. The Mayor replied that he would contribute to a private subscription, bub could do nothing else. The Council had made arrangements for stonebreaking to be done next winter. The men afterwards interviewed the Hon. (J. Fisher, who promised to bring the matter before the Minister of Public Works. In the course of his remarks, Mr Fisher said that their cry of want of labour was telling its tale on the colony as a whole in a way that the men little thought of. It had a far-reaching effect, which was doing the working men of New Zealand more injury than they could imagine. He did not wish to appear unkind to the men, bub he would say that ho would no longer lend countenance bo any meetings of the unemployed. He wished them to understand that he was saying this in their own favour. They must all see that the tide of prosperity was about turning in favour of this colony, and he for one hoped that ib would not be long before it was distinctly felt ; but he wished to put before them the damaging effects upon their future that the continuance of this cry would create. They were very differently situated her© ab present from the working men in Victoria, as he would show from the "Melbourne Daily Telegraph "of November 23rd. It was there stated bhat out of 5,000 applica- j tions for work under the Government, who had invited applications for 623 situations of different classes of labour, 1.000 had been selected, and these had been notified to attend and undergo literary and medical examination before a final selection was made. The working men of New Zealand might take this to heart, and consider that bheir lob wa3 bobter than that, and bhab the surplus labour of this colony had not, atter all, much to complain of. There was one further lesson he would desire to point out, this one thing — that what this colony was suffering from was want ot capital, which j was kept away by the cry of absentee j ownership, and unemployed agitation. This agitabion had bhe effecb of keeping back the influx of prosperity which must come if bhe working men of the colony were self-dependent, and would not rely so much on the Government for support as they had done. The Government should help them to get where there was work, and if there was a temporary dearth in one part, they would be wise in doing so.