OUR TRUE POSITION.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2166, 13 December 1875, Page 2

OUR TRUE POSITION.

(To the Editor of the Eyemng Star.) Sir, —Our present position as a working population truly demands some attention from the Government of this colony. Two-thirds of the working men on this goldfield are driven to ask what shall we do. We are here without work and without means to get to other places where work is plentiful, and we are getting worse oh every week, with, the dark prospect of a very gloomy Christmas before us. It is bad enough to be out of employment, but it is worse to be driven to write on the tablet of our memory these indellible lines :—Christmas, 1875, on the Thames goldfield. J^o work; no new clothes for Johnny; no shoes for Sally; no meat; no pudding; no cake this Christmas. And the rate collector has already told us that our very shelter will be sold on purpose to pay our overdue rates. Such,, sir, is the true position of iaany a hard working man on the Thames Goldfield, without expectations and without

hope. A large number of working men were looking hopefully forward to Sir George Grey's late visit, expecting he would devise some means of finding employment in order to alleviate their present depressed condition. The visit has taken place, and what has been the result P Sir George certainly spoke well in reference to politics and political quar» rels, subjects which are bad to digest on a working man's empty stomach. He pictured to our imagination 'a prospective railway and a growing population as a sedative to our present most pressing wants; he gave instructions for some patchwork contracts to be performed on bush tracks, which will absorb the labour of about 20 men for a very short time. Such men are already living in the neighborhood of the tracks, and are as bad off as ourselves. If our chief magistrate of the province and reputed champion of the colony cannot devise some remedy for the present depression, in what way will his far-seeing knowledge help us in the future? We are well pleased with Sir George Grey as a man of eloquence and good parts, but we would be better pleased with him as a real benefactor to our wives and children if he could devise some means of giving tangible employment to their bread miners. —I am, &c, T. Bbighouse.