THE SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1204, 21 August 1874, Page 4

THE SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS.

[WES'ITEORT EVEXEA'G STAR.] Those who are prone to predict evil will point a moral, if they do not adorn a tale, by dilating on tho discontent prevailing among newly arrived immigrants in Duuodin. Landed there in shoals, some good, some bad, some indifferent, the best have been quickly picked out by employers, but a residue remain wherein trouble is fermenting. As is the wont of discontented minds, a meeting has been held whereat to air their eloquence and detail their grievances. Dunedin journals state that the Athenaeum Hall was crowded, aud the speakers, at least many of them, spoke well, and in clear and decided language. They had many grievances, and sought for redress and assistance from older colonists. Their grievances were mainly that free food and lodging provided them was not of the best, that the work they had performed at the Immigration Barracks had been valued at half a crown, aud even at as little as eighteen pence, per day, aud that in seeking regular employment they found the prospects held out to them, to induce them leaving home, could not be realised in New Zealand. The chairman of tho meeting was tho well-known Mr f. Gr. S. Grant, whose presence did not tend to induce the speakers to moderate the raucour of their tongues. It was considered, so said those who made speeches, a bhame to encourage immigration while so muchjdifficulty existed in obtainin" employment, and parliament should bo petitioned to cause a temporary cessation i f immigration. Tho resolutions passed that pledged tho meeting not

to work for the Government " under the certified rate of wages." The rate, it may be presumed, the immigrants wore led to expect they would receive before leaving home. The second and third resolutions were : "That the newly-arrived immigrants are reasonably entitled to look to the Government for prompt employment on public works at a reasonable compensation, in accordance with promises held forth to the emigrauts ere they embarked for New Zealand." "That, in the event of the Government refusing to satisfy the just claims of the immigrants, authentic representations should be forwarded to the London Times; and that this meeting forms itself into a committee of six persons to, press upon the Government of New Zealand that the resolutions passed to-night should bo carried out; also setting forth the treatment the immigrants experienced after landing in the colony." A deputation was appointed to wait on the Government. The particular cause for disappointment and disaffection among immigrants is doubtless attributable to their arrival in the Colony in midwinter when the demand for labor, especially unskilled labor, is always at a low ebb, and wheu travelling in search of employment is both-toilsome and comfortless. The prompt adoption of means to despatch the surplus laborers, loitering about Dunediu streets, to places where labor is needed will ho doubt be effected but the trouble which the recent public meeting of immigrants foreshadows is the constantly recurring accumulation of newly imported labor in advance of any regularly organised plan of distribution. These new arrivals, coming from centres of population in Britain where trade unions flourish, and the combination of labor against capital has wrung from unwilling hands many concessions, come prepared toagitate, and are familiar With the most effective modes of procedure to compel compliance with their demands. Hence the danger that in the excess of their activity complications between employers and employed may arise, and evil report spread its way homeward, where its first effect will be to check the flow of really useful immigration, while it will not decrease the influx on New Zealand shores of the worthless and ne'er do wells, of which the' Colony has already too many.