HARD TIMES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1518, 27 November 1886, Page 2

HARD TIMES.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I want to trouble your most valuable paper once more. I want to know what the business men of Geraldine are thinking of in driving the men away ?, The Road Board is sacking the men, the Town Board has collapsed, the Geraldine Bush is done, and if a man who has a quarter-acre section and a bouse goes to a man who has 10,000 acres of land he will tell him be has no work for him ! Now the cry is “ Westport 1” The Geraldine men are rolling np their swags every week for Westport and the larrikins are rolling up their swags for Westport, and I hear, Mr Editor, that the women are going to roll their swags up, for they say they can get 7s a day

at the wash-tub. If a man in Geraldine bag n shilling he is watched like a cat watches a mouse. When a man cannot get permanent work, how can he pay his way ? I asked a farmer the other day if lie had any work. He said he had plenty of work, but no money, so I told him if wheat were £1 a bushel he would be have no money. Now, about ten days after I asked him be bought a block of land for which he gave £ISOO. These are the sort of men we have to contend with in Geraldine. Mr Wakefield once said in Geraldine that a man could get enough in the harvest time to keep him during winter. 1 earned 18s last harvest, and I don’t think that]would‘keep me through the winter, I hear that our present member voted for the £20,000 for emigration. I don’t see the need of any more emigration when there is so much depression in the country. I bear nothing of tbo Fakahu Coal Mine Company. I hope they will think about ,working it when the Angel comes, with one foot on the land and the other on the sea, and proclaims time shall be no longer, I I hope I have not intruded too much, on your paper, I would advise every mother’s son to clear out.—l, am, etc., George Stokes.

[lt is easy to say clear out, but it is difficult to find a place to go to. The work that the men of this colony ofight to be doing is being done in England, America, and Germany, owing to our glorious free trade. The working man who votes for free trade votes for giving to foreigners the work he ought to do himself. When working men do such a foolish thing as this they must expect to be idle. The remedy for want of employment is protection and cheap money. Will the working men vote for them ?— The Edi’tor.]