The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. THURSDAY, JULY 1, 1897. THE UNEMPLOYED IN SYDNEY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 151, 1 July 1897, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

THURSDAY, JULY 1, 1897. THE UNEMPLOYED IN SYDNEY.

For tha causa that lacks assistance, For tho ■wrong that needs resistance, lor the future 111 the distance, And the good that we can do.

The Government of New South Wales and the municipal authorities of Sydney have upon their hands just now an unemployed difficulty of extraordinary magnitude. The Australian " Star," in its issue of the 18th June, states, as the result of careful inquiries, that there were at that time 8,700 men unemployed in New South Wales, and, including the women and children dependent upon these bread winners, the total number of persons who must look to the various benevolent societies for support was nearly 25,000. It says : —" To feed these people costs ,£1,720 every week, or a year, and to make up this sum every man, woman and child in Sydney alone, counting the unemployed themselves, much donate 5s weekly."

The writer assigns two leading causes for this abnormal aggregation of workless people in the colony. As an advocate of protection it of course declares that Mr Reid's free trade policy, is mainly responsible. The number of unemployed, our contemporary asserts, has increased 5,000 since the tariff changes came into operation: " The protectionists, in their short reign," it says, " had managed to centralise matters so that openings were being tcade for the unemployed, and the great number that the free traders left on their hands was being diminished gradually. But when the change came again the good work was. shattered, and since then the lists of the idle have increased with every month."

The second active cause, it alleges, was the opening up of relief works last year at Bogan Sctub. This undertaking temporarily relieved Sydney of its surplus labour, but it also attracted hundreds of unemployed from adjacent colonies; and these men are now unable to leave New South Wales, and many have drifted into Sydney. " The only good thing' that the Bogan Scrub did," acccording to the " Australian Star," " was to relieve Sydney temporarily of a large number of unemployed. But now these men have all found their way back to the city. Footsore and hungry they have managed to wend their weary way over stony roads and dusty highways to this big haven of poverty, where the destitute knows that charity, if nothing else, awaits him. The approach of the winter months has brought these men into Sydney by the score. The reports in the papers ot the charity dinners that will be given to the unemployed in commemoration of the Queen's Record Reign have brought others, who probabiy will get their first square meal in many moons."

The story of the Bogan Scrub repeats the experience of relief works in New Zealand. They can only serve as a temporary expedient, and may even aggravate the primary difficulty. We do not suppose that the Government of New South Wales regarded employment of this character as a permanent solution of the problem. During the winter month* in all these colonies there is a scarcity of work iv certain branches of industry. From all open air occupations men are turned adrift. The wages of labourers, when in full work, leave very little margin for a prolonged period of idleness, and relief must be sought in some direction. We 1 cannot agree with our Sydney contemporary that the opening up of factories would prevent periodic fluctuations in the general labour market, although a policy which cultivates local manufactures undoubtedly tends to make the masses of the population less dependent upon the agricultural and pastoral industries, which are especially liable to these fluctuatiens. A married man who has his boys and girls at work in some workshop or factory can better stand siege during dull times than one who is without such allies.

One of the managers of a charity institution in Sydney, who was interviewed by a "Star" reporter, held strong views upon the value of protection as a remedy for lack of employment. He said: " There is sufficient fertile land in New South Wales to produce the raw material for all the necessities of life that are imported here. There are sources of mineral wealth yet undeveloped. With this colony's great wool product sufficient clothing could be manufactured to provide the wide world. One tactory devoted to the utilisation of the kauri gum output of New Zealand would give work to several thousand men. As it is this valuable product is sent to the United States by the ton, and the working men of that country are being benefited by the men who employ them to turn it into all manner of necessary aiad useful articles, and these articles are shipped back to Australia to be sold, when they could

be manufactured here by workmanship that is iust as skilled."

We entirely sympathise with these views; nevertheless, their adoption would not banish forever the cry of the unemployed. The best proof of this is the /act that the clamours of the workless at certain seasons are heard as often in Victoria, which has steadfastly pursued a Protective policy as wtthin the boundaries of the free trade colony. The " safe cure " for the unemployed difficulty, as of many other social problems, remains to be discovered. Temporary work by the State in one form or another is, after all, the best, remedy that has yet been suggested; it is infinitely superior to charitable relief, which begets a spirit of pauperism and degrades the recipient. We believe the time must come when the State will make provision for the temporary absorption of surplus labour in workshops as well as upon such outdoor works as Governments have hitherto provided. Many worthy men are quite unable to take advantage of outdoor labour, and they suffer untold hardships throughout lack of work. How the mental and physical capacities of men so situated can be utilised with advantage to themselves and the community is a subject worthy of the most earnest consideration of the political economist and social reformer.