WORKING MEN’S HOMES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1363, 9 July 1885, Page 3

WORKING MEN’S HOMES.

At the monthly meeting of theTemuka Hoad Board last Tuesday, the Chairman submitted for the consideration of members the Local Bills now before Parliament, He read several clauses of them, and showed how they would affect the district. He had no great objection to them, he said, except in one respect. There was a provision made for working men’s homes, of which he did not approve. This was a novelty.

Mr Quinn ; Oh, let us hear that. Read that, so we shall know all about it. It is sickening to hear all this talk about working men’s homes : proposing to give them three acres, and five acres and forty acres.

The Chairman then read the clause, which gives local, bodies power to purchase land, build homes, and settle on them working men. What the working men wanted was work, and that they had not to get.

Mr Quinn said they ought to take their swags and look for work. He had taken his swa> all the way from Otago when there were no roads, and had tramped the whole country. Phis cry about the working men was disgraceful. Nothing would satisfy them. If they got 40 acres, the next thing they would want would be to cart their grain to market for them. Mr Talbot would give credit for good intentions in this matter but it would do no good. It would only create a class, as homes could not he found for all of them.

Mr Quinn thought it was disgraceful altogether. He saw many persons pitchforked into billets they could not keep. This pampering of working men would get them all on you at once, and there would be no standing them. Mr Talbot said it would not benefit the working men, as they could not find work. As for the ratepayers, it would not benefit them at all. They all knew what trouble they had with the Road Board cottages, and they were no benefit to them. It would be a loss to the ratepayers. Mr Quinn said it would be a harm to the working men to be pampering them in this way If this were done they would be expecting everything done for them.

The Chairman said there was still a more objectionable provision in the Act. It provided that if one of the occupants of these homes became bankrupt, the home should still remain the property of the bankrupt and that he should not be liable to have it taken in execution under any process issued out of any Court in the colony, tie considered this gave men power to incur debt and then defy those to whom they owed money. Mr Job Brown said it was altogether absurd. He knew of a man who got Umber and iron and would not pay for it, and defied the man who had supplied him.

Mr Quinn said it was ridiculous altogether. The Chairman said evidently the Government wanted to shift on to the shoulders of the local body what they had made a mess of. There was no object to be gained by it. He thought the County Council ought to call a meeting of the representatives of local bodies to consider these questions. The Board agreed to this course and adjourned.