Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1895. THE UNEMPLOYED.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5017, 4 May 1895, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1895. THE UNEMPLOYED.

A skcoxd batch of unemployed men, some seventy in number, and drawn in nearly equal proportions from tho North and South Islands, is to be sont to Galatea towards the end of next week, to engage in road-making operations through the Uriwera country. Tiie migration of Canterbury residents,. at tho cost of. the Government, to the North Island, is becoming so large, that a leading journal at Christchurch, regards it with dismay: It means that anj important Provincial district is becomiiiGf depopulated, And yet, we believe there is work for all the unemployed of Canterbury, in the neighbourhood of their own homos J ami amongst their own friends and i relatives, if it were not for: pernicious interference of the Go- : vernment in the mattor of work and I wages. The policy of the present j Ministry has been to create an arti-1 (icial price for labour,aud to destroy j open competition in the labour; market as well as to discourage men! of means from the employment of i labour. Formerly there was a fair field for one and all inNew Zealand, now fully a tenth of the adult population has become dependent on State help. Under the old contract 6ystem, work could be executed on terms which paid both the employer and employe; Jlvery week hundreds of contrnots were let openly throughout the Colony, and-alltho| unemployed men in the country had' a chance to get work on them. All this is a thing of tho past, for the unem, ployed man of to-day has not one chance where he had a dozen a few years hack, Suffering from this unwise interference with the labour : market, the general productiveness ■ of the Colony, has deteriorated, Of ' course this has not been tho only ' factor in the reduction of our , exports, butit has been a leading one. , yjie quantity of wheat grown in the ', cplppy last year was .only'a fouitji of j what was grown a few years ago, Of i cou'-'se the low price of it is the pain 1

drawback, but the comparatively high price of labour has had vory much to do with it. Nothing is moro obvious than the fact tlint when the market value of produce falls, wages must decline or the produce cease to be grown. The first 'alternative lis bad enough, hut' the second is far worse, and yet the second is the avowed and persistent policy of the Government. The prico of labour in a prosperous community is determined by the value of products; but in New Zealand the Government'fix it arbitrarily. The result is that land goes out of cultivation and that thousands of mon who should be engaged in raising marketable products are either idle or employed by the Government on terms disadvantageous to the Colony.