EMIGRANT'S LOT

Evening Star, Issue 18057, 26 August 1922, Page 8

EMIGRANT'S LOT

CONDITIONS IN NEW ZEALAND. “THE NAKED TRUTH." Under these headlines a special correspondent to the ‘ Glasgow Evening Times' ’ describes conditions in New Zealand: as he has seen them. (Mowing pictures have been, drawn of the places that await -deserving^men in Canada, Africa, Australia, andi Now Zealand—free land or cheap land, high wages, and plenty of employment—the promise of a new heaven and earth is dangled' before the eyes of the hornyhanded sons of toil. One listens, and wonders- whether those gentlemen who draw these blight pictures are cognisant of the real facts. Hero is an advertisement which is typical ■of many that arc appearing in the public prints all over the country : EXPERIENCED DOMESTIC SERVANTS REQUIRED FOR NEW ZEALAND. Free passages, and £2 for expenses ’on joining steamer. . . • Reliable situations guaranteed. Farm Hands, Carpenters and Joiners, Plumbers, Blacksmiths, and Bricklayers also required. Excellent climate; good wages. It is scandalous that such announcements (should bo made .by responsible officials, for, to say the least of it, they are misleading. I am not sure how far the part relating to domestic servants is true, but I am sure that that part of the advertisement referring to bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers, blacksmiths, etc., is, to put it mildly, over-colored. Nerv Zealand has at the present timelittle need for them. She has too many unemployed within her own borders. THE WORKERS’ LOT. The tradesman who leaves the Old Country in the belief that in coming to New Zealand' he is entering Elysium will in all likelihood be doomed to disappointment. During the past year I have been over the greater part of the dominion, and have spokjn to all sorts and conditions of men, and,have found many deeply regretting that they ever gave credence to the fairy tales told them of the beauty and plenty and freedom of “God’s Own Country,” as the New Zealander delights to call his land. A laborer can usually find a job, but a tradesman has to be content with what he can pick up. This is not an industrial country, but an agricultural. The need is not for engineers, but ploughmen; not for manager’s, but for men who can wield the pick and shovel. The patternmaker who is not willing to wheel a barrow, the grocer who is not willing to drive a dray, the clerk who care.s not for a butter factory or a freezing work—in short, the man who will not turn his hand to anything—had better stay at Home. These things Retract not from the excellency of the climate—its beauty, its fertility, its geniality, its clear blue skies, its freedom; but one cannot live on beauty and fresh air alone. Intending immigrants should remember that, and not be deluded by the glowing accounts of enthusiastic friends. Whatever New Zealand was a dozen years ago, it is not today a land flowing with milk and honey. The slump in butter and wool and beef has caused great distress, and many who bought farms during the days' of prosperity have simply walked out of their holdings, leaving behind them their money and their all. EX-SOLDIERS HARD HIT. The ex-soldiers have been badly hit. They bought when markets were inflated, and now that prices are falling they cannot carry on, Government is not able to lift them out of the slough. With poverty and bankruptcy crouching at the door, the lot of the “cookie”—mat is what the working 'farmer is called—is not a pleasant one, and it is questionable whether that of the merchant in the town is much better. I heard Sir. Thomas Mackenzie, a member of the Cabinet and late High Commissioner to Great Britain, utter a warning against entertaining too lofty expectations of New Zealand. ■There is abundance of work of a kind, but it requires, a stout, heart and a strong arm and dour determination to exploit it. -By and by things will right themselves, and when the bnsh is cleared and roads made and factories built Maoriland will offer opportunities to working men second to none.

Recently I asked a man of sound judgment ami good position, who has been here for nearly fifty years, whether he would advise an ordinary workman to come out, and he replied : “ I would not if he has a good situation at Horae, for (1) he might not make good, , and if he were fifty years of age the probability is lie would 'not; (2) the conditions and methods would be new to him; (3) he would miss many of the little comforts and luxuries he has been accustomed to; and (4) he might not be able to accommodate himself to his new environment.” Not a few have failed in the last respect, and would fain return from whence they came, but have not the means. CLYDE MAN’S EXPERIENCE. I met in Dunedin an ex-soldier who was acting as a tramway conductor. He told me that before the war he had been in a good position in the office of a shipyard on the Clyde. When lie gob bis discharge he came out here to belter himself. His wage was £4 a week, but that did not go so far, he said, as £2 at Home. He did not like the place, but ho would require to stay on, as he had a wife and two children to keep. In the same town I fell in with another who had been an accountant in Liverpool, and rather fancied himself. He was weary—sick to death, he said—hunting for a job, and was seeking to get back to old England again. Still another. He was fifty-four years of age. He had come out because of the rosy-colored letters of a son who had run away from home, and reported that ho was doing splendidly in the land _ of his adoption. When the father arrived ho discovered his son idle, his story a piece of pure invention. “ Why did you write that you were doing so well and that your prospects were so bright?” he asked, and the son answered: “I had to justify myself, and so made believe.” In Wellington I camo across a structural engineer I knew in Glasgow. He was a young, strong, capable fellow, with an; optimistic turn of mind, and a wife and two children. He was fortunate to secure a post at £5 per week, but, as he had ,to pay £5 15s a week for rooms, he had come to the conclusion that, notwithstanding its drawbacks, Paisley road west was a better place for him. I could tell of other similar cases. SUCCESS BY HARD WORK. Of course, all are not like these. Many in spite of difficulties and' privations, have made good. One member of the Legislative Council, with a 1 own and country house, started on the roads forty years ago, and by perseverance and hard’ work gradually wrought himself up to a position of affluence. The days of romance are not past, and in a young country such as this there are infinite jirssibilities. A worthy old gentleman, spending the evening of his life in the midst of comfort and plenty, told me that ho came out from tvihnarnock to Auckland as a young married man in the early days. The gitual tion he came to was not what he expected. The work was different, the methods were different, and so were his surroundings. Many a time he cursed the day he left “Auld Kiliie.” But his wife vas a stayer she cheered and encouraged him ana guided the affairs under her charge magnificently, and as ho was young and strong -he worked to the limit of his powers—-forty-eight hours at a stretch and twenty-four hours off, then forty-eight hours and again twentv-four off, and that he continued for months on end. It wss ft hard and strenuous time, but they won through, and they are reaping a rich harvest now. WAGES AND PRICES. I might tell of others, but to what purpose? One cannot tell how the wheel of •fortune may spin. In normal times the workman may have a little more in hand ftt the end of the year, hut at present.

■with poor trade and; high, prices, there is no inducement to him to come out hero. Wages axe better than at Homo for those ■who can secure a job, but the cost of living is also higher. The average tradesman can make from £5 to £7 a week; the clerk, etc., £4. House rents in a respectable locality run from 30s to 4Cfe per week. Doctors charge from 10s 6d a visit. A hat that would cost 15s or 20e in Glasgow cannot bo got under 355-or 40s. Nothing is cheaper hero except butter and beef.