The Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1874.] MONDAY, APRIL 8, 1895. A CO-OPERATIVE CAMP.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 4996, 8 April 1895, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1874.] MONDAY, APRIL 8, 1895. A CO-OPERATIVE CAMP.

A. BESCRii'TIo:; of a co-operative camp, was recently supplied In us, and if the information given be correct, this popular institution must be quite a little Hades, maintained at the cost of the ratepayers. We urn informed that in the particular cainp to which we refer, and which is probably typical of other camps, there is one absolute Lord and Master, the Government Overseer. This potentate, we are assured, rules the'roast. Ho can, at his pleasure, take a man out of one gang, and put him into another, or dispense with his se.'vices altogether.. It is even alleged that be can do more than this, and that men in the camp are obliged, by fear of their master, todeal with t-lio storekeeper whom ho favours, and to refrain from dealing with the storekeeper on whom the light of his countenance does not shine. The system is said to be one of favouritism, pure aud simple, and if this be so the rcsultto the Colonial taxpayor must be disastrous. Again it is said that the camp is considerably poorer than Job, and that men in regular work have not a sixpence to bless themselves with, and that such of them who may have taken up land nre powerless to occupy or improve their sections. One reason of this disability is said to be that considerable quantities of alcoholic liquor are brought into tho camp and sold to the co-operative labourers, or to comply with the law with regard to such traffic, orders are given for the purchase of such refreshments and duly executed. The co-operative system is one that is an expense to the taxpayers of the Colony because workdone under it probably costs at least a third more than if it were performed by free contract. Why should the overtaxed settlers of tho Colony be sweated to maintain cooperative camps for tho benefit of overseersand favoured storekeepers ? Tho Government contemplates a further extension of its iniquitous co-operative system during the coming winter. Its object iu doing so is

commendable, viz: to find work fov unemployed and to sottlo them on the land, but on the other hand the extension of this system must mean further taxation for the industrious settlers of the Colony and a. worthless and fictitious settlement.