THE SESGWICK BOYS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 8 May 1913, Page 5

THE SESGWICK BOYS.

AN INTERESTING LETTER

The following-letter lias been addressed by Mr T. E. Sedgwick' to each of the party of fifty town lads brought out by him two years ago to work on New Zealand farms:— 3-3, Oriental Street, 1 Poplar, E. March 28, 1913. Dear Comrades, — Throe years ago to-day I first landed in New ZeaJand to plead the cause of town lads before the Government. A year of letter-writing had produced no result, as the overseas Governments did not know th<. abilities, .stivngth, and adaptability of town lads, and their London representatives therefore all «said. '•'They hqd no instructions." As ws look back we cannot help exclaiming, "Praise be to God."

And why?— Town lads have com. l into their own. They are recognised as an Imperial force—for production, for defence;, and tor consumption of manufactures and imports, as centres of immigration, and as future settlers and heads of families, the Empire's "truest and greatest wealth. The Agent-General for Victoria wrote to me in June 1910, that ha had tried to get an experiment made with town boj-s, but had been xmsuccessful. Later on, some West Ham unemployed boys were sent, and now they will give a £7 fare to 8000 Bri t:sh lads, provided they are equally good, but their system of placing does not approach the, perfection of New Zealand's, whose example will, I hope, bo adopted throughout the Empire. Other overseas Governments are taking up the question, and I hop? that town lads will beforeMong be going to all the provinces of Canada and States of Australia as well as to _>ew Zealand. The home Government has never . bepn Imperial, except in war time, I and the English people are Imperially mouthed and not Imperially minded. Consequently we have no Imperial department of migration, trade or communication. If we do not get more Britishers in Canada and South Africa, they will no longer be British after the next few year? but will be American and Boer-Dutch.

Wages in New Zealand «eem to have gone up since you boys arrived, but if a few More parties had since arrived wages would l>e still higher, as a boy's consumptive capacity in clothes, food, etc., is so enormous. Although Ave have had a so-railed "boom" in trade, we have had a solid mass of unemployment, not seasonal but permanently, for tinlast few years, and the boom will soon be followed by a period of depression Lit trade, when unemployment will increase. The preventive for unemployment is the Imperial Migration of the best. This leaves the second-rate jobs to the secondrate workers, and saves their being unemployed. Otherwise employee get first-class- workers at secondrate payI hope yon chaps write home regularly—people do so look and. long for letters from -absent' ones. I hear from some of your fathers and mothers that they get letters very regularly ; others think they might be better supplied with news Keep up our motto, THOROUGH. —Your' affectionate friend and brother, THOS. E. SEDGWICK.