CLERK OR CRIMINAL? TO THE EDITOR.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 83, 5 October 1910, Page 4

CLERK OR CRIMINAL? TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — To my sorrow I am a clerk, not a clerk in holy orders with little to do beyond interfering in other people's affairs, but a common, every-day, threadbare clerk whose soul is heavy with envy. It is said that we derive a certain amount of satisfaction from the misfortunes of our friends ; so, also, do the benefits conferred upon thorn create envy and jealousy when we do not share them. Thousands of pounds are quickly collected for the Children's Hospital ; money is readily forthcoming for a Boys' Institute, and daily donations are made for prevention of cruelty to animals — all excellent things. The workingman has his union to protect him, special commissioners try in vain to induce the shearers to submit their cast-iron demands_ to reasonable discussion, and now our criminals aro 'going to have a better lime than many of those outsido the gaol walls. Bill Sykos is not only provided with free board, lodging, and clothes, but, thanks to the Crimes Amendment Act, will now pass his days, not in a stuffy office driving- a quill for eiijlit hours a day, but ; out in tho glorious sunlight, farming, I planting trees, or converting the waste land into orchards. 1 SLha sag jYpadej* <&fr -ibi f eglipga el

envy with which the clerk regards all this? No commissioners to dibcuss his rate of pay. No union to limit his hours. Wages, hours, overtime : these are matters for his master; his share is silent obedience or the sack. A little while ago a young man was taken to tho Wellington Hospital sufforing from an ovordoso of nepenthe. H6 had, so the account read, been suffering from insomnia. Yes, very likely. He was a clerk out of employment, down on the bed-rock, tho only thing in his pocket an excellent reference from his last employer. No billet, no money,_ no anything, and he suffered from insomnia ! To wandor tho streets hoping for a shilling here or a sixpence there to keep life's candle burning', with the same prospect for to-morroWj is not conducive to sleep ; so ho took poison-'-and how appropriate ! Nepenthe, which, according to tho diotionary, is "a kind of magic potion supposed to mako persons forget their sorrows and misfortunes." What alternative has the starving clerk? To whom can ho go? Is there any agency, Government or otherwise, for his succour ? If there be, I, who have been tan years in the Empire City, know it not. The Council of Churches takes no interest in the clerk; he has no money, and, unlike the Labour party, i» not at all likely to become a power in the State. I believe tho clergy will visit him when he gets into gaol ; Ido not know, I have not been there yet. The gaol ! There is the haven where no money is asked, where food and clothing are free, and where the sunshine and the singing of birds will gladden the heart of tho clerk, and the gloom of the office will trouble him no more. Why oommit suicide, when it is easier, cheaper, and less unpleasant simply- to become a oriminal? When I road of the need for population, aided immigration, decrease in the birth rate, all these platitudes which mean increase in population with no corresponding increase in em.ployment, I wonder if the writers aro sitting in a cosy study with their rent paid; or living in a furnished room — save the mark — and dreading the approaching step of tho apartment sweater. Servant girls are to be brought from Homo for £2 16s per head, so that New Zealand girls may take men's places in tho office. If population is wanted, how easy to get it. Instead of talking drivel about Dominion prohibition of drink, let us talk prohibition of poverty. Of course, we will be told that liquor is the cause of poverty. Put it the other way — that poverty is the causa of drink, and you will at least be nearer the truth. Poverty is what all men dread. It is the root of all evil, were it not for poverty men would not make gold their God. The country which first makes poverty impossible, which says no man need starve who is willing to work, will have solved the population question. Wealth, is tho product of labour, and land and wealth is tho antidote for poverty. We have the land in this country, and we have • the unemployed, and there is required only tho machinery for bringing them togother. Is it not manifestly absurd that there should bo unemployed men tramping tho streots looking for work, while the burglar and the forger are planting trees, farming, and preparing orchards? If any one_ says that there is no poverty in tho capital city of Now Zealand, he is either ignorant or a liar. The penniless clerk is a fact, and, taking into consideration his condition, it is almost a wonder that he does not" improve it by becoming a criminal. — I am, etc., DE PROFUNDIS; Wellington, 26fch September, 1910.