THE GOVERNMENT AND THE UNEMPLOYED.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9173, 2 August 1895, Page 4

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE UNEMPLOYED.

Our exertions on behalf of those who cannot find work during these winter months, entitle us, we hope, to comment adversely on the communication from the Mayor to the Premier, which we published yesterday, without it being imputed to us that we are lacking in sympathy for those who are in distress. We are sure that it will not be said of us that this is so, even by those, who cannot agree with us in many of our political views. But we must enter our protest on behalf, not only of ourselves and our friends, but of many others, against the attitude which the Mayor appears to take up against the Government. He evidently thinks that, the moment the Government are made acquainted with the fact that there are people in distress who want work, it is the duty— the bounden duty—of the Government to come forward and either find work or find money to provide work. Let us bear in mind what the facts of the case are. Private benevolence in response to our appeal and that from the Mayor and others has contributed close upon £1000—no small gift for this small community in these hard times. The Government have subsidised thi3 to the extent of £1320 or thereabouts. The local bodies have contributed say £600 and the Government have subsidised this amount by about £600. The Government have therefore given the very handsome contribution of £1920. We do not think they can fairly be asked to do more. In fact we think it would be wrong and impolitic to ask them to do more. Why is it that the funds at the disposal* of the Committee have

come so low that they are nearly exhausted ? It is largely because they have extended their relief to everybody who asked for it, instead of confining it, as was intended, to those who are permanent residents in this district or within a certain radius of it. The consequence has been undoubtedly that a considerable number of men have been drawn into the town by the action of the Committee. We know that there are some of those who contributed to our fund who object to the indiscriminate use thus made of it. They contend that each locality should deal with its own poor aided, no doubt, to some extent by the State. But funds contributed for tho relief of the poor of Christchurch and the neighbourhood should not be used to draw the poor from other parts of the colony here, and make Christchurch a kind of dumping ground for the destitute. We are not, however, desirous of appearing to censure with any severity the excessive liberality of the Committee. They had a painful and responsible task, and they have no doubt done what they thought was best. But in future it will be well to bear in mind that we must localise our charity more. What we are more concerned to enforce just now is the blind folly of leading the labouring classes to think that they have a right at all times to demand work from the Government. In their own interests this would be fatal. No Government in the world, least of all the Government of a little debt-burdened colony like this, could possibly meet such demands. If such demands are recognised at all it can only have the effect —disastrous to the community, but most of all to the labouring classes— that all the out-of-works, all the failures of other colonies, would come flocking over here as to a veritable refuge for the destitute. Surely the working classes who are so anxious to be protected against the competition not only of the Chinaman, the Assyrian and the Indian, but even of their own children by Immigration Acts, Apprentice Acts, and so forth, will not be so blind as to encourage disastrous competition of this kind.