THE GENTLEMAN FROM AUSTRALIA

Evening Star, Issue 18161, 29 December 1922, Page 5

THE GENTLEMAN FROM AUSTRALIA

ms DAY'S WORK AMONG BRITAIN’S UNEMPLOYED. LAND SETTLEMENT SCHEME AT GREAT EXHIBITION. [By L. Cope Corxford.] Every day, in this land of hope and glory, in every great city, a thousand men and women, or more, line up outside the Labor Exchanges to receive the unemployment dole. Then they go home, or they take a walk, or go somewhere by tramcar, or play football, or wander into a kinema. or drag themselves along in search of a job which is not to bo found. Thoso arc tho .workers for whoso future welfare special efforts are to be organised under tho auspices of the British Empire Exhibition; and that organisation is to be in working order long before tbo exhibition is .opened in - 1924. Strong young men, sturdy, seasoned men of middle ago, old men twisted noth toil, troops of girls who have learned little and who regard domestic service as degrading; all are there at the Labor Exchange. You can tell at once tho honest lad out of work by no fault of his own. Ho is lean; his worn clothes hang loosely upon him ; there is the hollow under the cheekbone. Ho looks at you, dumb, wistful, doggedly enduring. He rises every morning without hope, and without hope ho goes to bed, perhaps sleeping in his clothes on a wretched bed in a close room, with others like himself. For him, day in and day out, tho inhuman unceasing traffic of the street?, the squalid little shops, the bitter wind, the rain soaking to his feet, tho rare sunlight making more vivid tho black sickness of his heart. THREE NOES. Then there comes a day when a kindly Labor Exchange official presents him with a printed form. Tho word ,T Australia” occurs in tho title. Australia? Ho know a chap whoso undo went to Australia and did well, by all accounts. But ho saw a piece in the paper tho other day saying Australia was no good. Unemployment, there, too, it seems. How does one get to Australia with no money? In tho form it says something about paying the passage out. Probably a trick, of tho Government to deport our best men, same as it said in tho paper. . . . But no

harm in filling up the form. Age, height, weight, character? . . . Can you miM Can you plough? Can you manage a team of heavy horses? No; nor any chance. Put down “no ” throo times. Could learn though. . . . 1 Upon a day, this lad of twenty-three is informed that the gentleman from Australia would like to sco him. He enters the room, to find the gentleman from Australia sealed at a table, with the printed form in front of him. A burly, strongjawed person is the gentleman, from Australia, with large, alert grey eyes, a manner at once cordial and resolute, and a remarkably thick, strong hand. Contemplating it, the lad thinks that the gentleman from Australia could probably handle a team of heavy horses. As indeed he can.

After a few quiet questions, the answers to which he receives in silence, the gentleman from Australia says suddenly: “ I can tell you a hit of what work on a farm in Australia is. I worked in the backblocks for a good many years. Are you prepared to put in solid work, like setting posts and rails, every post put in a 2ft deep hole, in a temperature of 110 degrees in the shade? ” “Yes, sir,” says the lad. The wide grey eyes of the gentleman from Australia survey him attentively. “ You say you’ve been out of work for two years; not even temporary employment? ” “Yes, sir.” “I can’t understand it,” says the gentleman from Australia. "It couldn’t happen in Australia; not if a husky lad like you went on the land. And, further, I can’t understand how you can be fit for -work, after two years out of it.” “We pi ay’ football, and that, sir.” The gentleman from Australia nods his head and understands. “ I’ll let you know,” ho says. 'lire lad goes out, but- not as he came in. He goes out with a new hope, •which produces the surprising effect of a choking sensation. SIXTY PER CENT. FIT.

The gentleman from Australia sees man after man all that day. Then he calls on the mayor. “I am surprised.” says the gentleman from Australia. “ Candidly, I never expected to see the kind of men you have here. I reckon a fully 50 per cent, of them are as good burly lads as any Australian farmer could want. But—two years out of work, they tell me. Not even temporary employment. Is that true?” “it is true,” replies the mayor not without feeling, for in the exorcise or his office he has some reason to know it. “ Well, well,” says the gentleman from Australia. “You’ll excuse my asking. This country’s very different from Australia.”

The gentleman from Australia recommends the acceptance for free emigration of 700 men in that town, 500 or 400 from the next, and so on; and he finds in London East, End—again to his surprise—men of as good a quality as, or better than, elsewhere. Had he arrived in this country twenty years ago how many thousands of men and women would have been released from poverty? But there brooded then and there rests now a thick cloud of ignorance upon the land. “Where is Australia or Canada? What is it? No use to mo.” It is one of the purposes of the British Empire Exhibition, to be opened at Wembley in 1924, to enlighten that darkness and to help in the great scheme of settling our unemployed workers on the rich lands in the dominions oversea.

Australia may ba trusted to do herself justice in the great exhibition building, on which 'she is spending £250,000; Canada and tho other dominions will play their part worthily; but hero I would suggest that alongside tho representation of Australia or Canadian farm life and tllio splendid life of tho forest should be placed the model of an English slum. It might help to clear .people’s vision. In tho meantime the door is, already opening, as I have described.