THE UNEMPLOYED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7826, 19 June 1909, Page 1

THE UNEMPLOYED.

One need not be a Socialist or an Anarchist to approve the statement that ! more than price has been heard both in the Motherland and in the Oversea Dominions :" that the pressing question of the age-is^that of iunemployment. (Statesmen may evade it or otter purely temporary palliatives, and politicians may wish that large . deputations of despairing men would never come near them ; but the- presence of the: man who wants work ; cannot find it, like the ghost of- Banquo at Macbeth's feast, "will "nqt\ down." There was a time in the history of England ;when the workless,; man tyas viewed as a rogue, a vagabond; and a.. nuisance, and treated accordingly. 'He was a pest ..who required to be - suppressed by stern measures, and for all society cared, so.long as.it was riJ of him, it never. bothered what his end was. Mark Rutherford, writing of those days, has said :', Let no man judge Communist or Anarchist till be has asked. for , leave , to work and '-'a your eyes !" has rung yin his ears. . . . The Blanketeers,, shivering on Ardwick Green, the weavers who afterwards drilled on Lancashire moors, and wore hung, according to law or killed at Peterloo, are ■ less ridiculous than those . who • Vhurig: or sabred them ; less ridiculous than the Crimean War and nundherless dignified events in human history, the united- achievements of .the and Ministries of Europe. But though* .much remains to be done, and while statesmen are putting off the decisive.day aslpng as they can, there is a vastly different spirit abroad in the world to-day. Responsible leaders have at least got as far as- Recognising their, duty and of admitting that something has to bo done. The unemployed, in common,with other sections of society, has come into its own; that is to say, he is a factor in the community that must be considered. He be. shot down, or ignored,l or pushed into the slum. His niimbers forbid that,; and his opportunities for organisation have niade him independent of warnings. The; masses, the ever-grow-ing masses, of unemployed that are to be found in all large centres of civilisation are a distinct menace to ; the continuance of that civilisation, and it is for statesmen everywhere to beware in time.—Dunedin Evening Star, June 10.