The Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1887. IMMIGRATION AND UNEMPLOYED.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1674, 17 December 1887, Page 2

The Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1887. IMMIGRATION AND UNEMPLOYED.

In-the Public Works Statement the Government propose to Bet aside. £30,000 for the purpose of providing work for the unemployed, and £70,702 for the purpose of bringing immigrants into this country. It is difficult for any; sane man to realise that while it is found necessary to spend Buch large sums of money on giving charity employment to men to keep them from starving our Government deem it advisable to continue to import immigrants. What they want the immigrants for no one can tell; what object thej hope to gain by persisting in carrying on this immigration policy is still more inexplicable. The fact that £30,000 is required to provide charity work for our surplua labor proves that we do not stand in need of laborers, and proves also that to increase the number of our laborers must result in increasing the unemployed. There is only one way in which we can explain the fatuity that leads to the continuance of the immigration policy. It is that some people have got it into their heads that what we require in this country is population. Some wise-acre has said it, and others have re-echoed it until it has become a truism in the estimation of the unthinking. There can be no doubt that we require more population, but not of a kind that must become a burden on those already in the country. The late Government introduced 80 farmers who had over £34,000 between them. That was sensible, commendable, profitable immigration, and the more we

could have of it the better; but to induce poor, penniless people to come to the colony at the present time by giving them free passages is nothing short of a crime. It deceive! the poor immigrants, it does a wrong to the poor working people of this colony by lessening their means of living, and it robs the taxpayers of the money which is spent in this way. If we stood in need of such labor such a policy would be wise and commendable, but while the unemployed cry is as loud as it is, and such a large sum of money is required to provide work for them, the proposal must be regarded as monstrous. To increase population by pouring penniless people into the colony . must make things worse, for these people must become a burden on the taxpayers. It does not matter whether the " new chums " get work or not. They may, perhaps, but if they do they cannot get it without depriving some of the old colonists of it, and then the old colonists must go to swell the ranks of the unemployed. Now, we know there are many who think this policy of immigration a grand thing. It will increase population and cheapen labor. It will bring down the wages of the working man, and that, of course, is a very good thing in the estimation of a great many people. If these people reflected, and asked themselves, Where does the money that goes,to pay for these immigrants and unemployed come from? they might possibly entertain a different opinion of it. First of all, let them remember that the £30,000 for the unemployed and the £70,702 for immigration is to be borrowed. Thus the sum which is to be spent on these two objects amounts to over £IOO,OOO. This money, is to be borrowed in England,, and in order to pay the interest on it we must send away out of the colony over £SOOO a year. Let our wiseacres think of , this, and and then ask themselves, What is the use of practising miserable cheeseparing economies by cutting down this man's and that man's wages while we continue to squander money in the insane way in which we are doing ? It is simply nonsense. The retrenchment ought to have commenced with such things' as these instead of with the paltry little things it has commenced with; but that cannot be done until we put. sensible men into Parliament. Anyone reading the Public Works Statement must come to the conclusion that it does not aim at retrenchment—that it is the old policy of "borrow so that we can spend." National bankruptcy must be our ultimate doom. ■ ■mi liii i i " i , i mm»