THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2543, 27 October 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED.

Tub London Times has the following article —The " Hirst report of the Mansion House Conference on the condition of the Unemployed" is sad reading. The conference, it may Lib remembered, was the outcome of the " unemployed" demonstrations of last November, and from the beginning it had two separate ends in view. 'L'lnough the agency of Lord Month's Public Gardens Association, the Committee disbursed some £3000 in wages to some three or four hundred men. They also sought to attempt to benefit permanently all those labourers who were capable of being so helped, but after the most careful and apparently zealous inquiry, they were able to improve the condition of only 17 per cent, of those employed, and theyexpressa doubt whether even that improvement is likely to be permanent. To judge the full extent of that failure, it has to ha remembered that no man was employed at all unless bo was supposed to beable-bodied and of character, and that the Reference Committee had funds at their disposal for emigration or for any other purpose they thought proper. But the truth appears to be that the men to be helped were idle, or, at least, had lost the capacity of continuous exertion, and that they had no desires 3ave tosupply the wants of the day, no views as to their future, no wish to emigrate, and in some cases positive objection to take work out of London. In short the Reference Committee appointed to give a helping hand to the labourers found that these were, in most cases, incapable of rising. Thus they report " that works started for the relief of the unemployed, even though they be in some degree useful and beneficial, are in tho loug run an injury instead of a benefit to the community by . . .

diminishing self reliance and enterprise also that such works . . . . will usually result in increasing the number of those dependent on almsgiving, and, by slackening foresight during the months when wages are earned, intensify the evil instead of remedying it." It is not possible, to pen a stronger condemnation than that, which, it must be noted, is not the work of an unfriendly critic, butnf a committee of the Conference itself. In these circumstances it is a remarkable proof of the optimism of human nature that the Conference contemplated tho possibility of making a future appeal for large sums of money to be used in purchasing estates in England and founding agricultural training colonies thereon. This scheme is based on the report of a sub committee, which spent several months in drawing up a rough scheme, and to this added a description of the results of such charitable agricultural colonies in Holland. A careful study of the long-continued operations of these Dutch associations, as set forth by the committee themselves, leads us to the belief that these have proved to be unmitigated evils, for while providing a comfortable, but spiritless, life for a few hundred familes. they have set a premium on pauperism, and are breeding up a race of children whose only destiny is to be paupers like their fathers. Of course, the Euglish scheme., if it ever come to fruition, is to be different from the Dutch ; but no differentiation of detail can get rid of the central fact that to take a man and set liini to task work in exchange for food and clothes, is the very last way of teaching him self reliance, foresight, energy, and thrift. Meanwhile, a now sub-committee has been appointed to inquire further into the matter, to consider oilers of land, and to work out the figures more in detail. If the scheme is ever offered to the public by tho Conference, the destructive criticism of it will bo found in words we have quoted from the Reference Committee, and in the accounts of foreign failure. The plain truth is that, among all the men. who crowd to relief works, there are not fivo, there are, probably, not two, per hundred who possess those qualities which in all ages and all times have been necessary to ensure an independent livelihood. With these men nothing can be done. It is with the children we must deal. The other day we found that out of eaoh one hundred boys of sufficiently bad behaviour and antecedents to be sent to tho Industrial Schools, eight-three can be put in the way well doing. To-day we disnovel' that ouc of eaoh one hundred able bodied men of supposed good charaoter, only seventeen can be helped, and those but doubtfully. The comparison of tho figures is sufficient. Our progress must be on the Una that otters the least resistance.