ALIEN LABOR ON THE GUMFIELDS.

Hastings Standard, Issue 45, 18 June 1896, Page 3

ALIEN LABOR ON THE GUMFIELDS.

r To Tin-: s'",ornii;.' Sip.,—ln your last evening's issue I notice the announcement that the Tarawera, winch arrived in Auckland last week, firings among her passengers ~>2 Austrian*, the majority of whom are bound for the Northern gumfields. Are your readers aware that the flooding or importation of alien labor to the gumfields is the crullest wrong that any Government can inflict 011 a struggling and hardworking community such as those (for the most part unfortunate waifs) who are compelled to eare a precarious living on the gumlields ? Very few British colonists in this fertile and prosperous province have the remotest idea of the hardship* and privations incidential *0 the struggles for the hare necessities of life that a gumdigger has to maintain, from daylight until dark, and when the sun goes down start work again by the flickering aid of a slush or gum light. Then again if the digger has luck, of what does it avail him '? Nothing. He is under the bane of the most cursed system th;>t was ever allowed to exist in a free and British country. I refer to that unmitigated and rascally fraud known by the "" Truck System." A stranger, thank heavens, in this part of the country. Some time ago the Premiers of the sister colonies promised to introduce a bill dealing with the introduction of alien labor. When this legislation comes in force, if ever it does, it will be too late to have any effect (like the old parody of shutting the stable, Ac.). The old gumdiggers who staved, starved and endured untold hardships will be frozen out. They will have to make room for this hungry horde of alien locusts who come at the eleventh hour to reap the advantages of what the British gumdiggers toiled and starved for during the last 20 years. The Gumdiggers and Workers' Union must be up and doing, and fight shoulder to shoulder to maintain their rights. The introduction of a poll-tax and the boycott system applied locally would be powerful factors to keep the

foreigners at home. The gumdiggers' block vote will be worth some thing next December.—l am, &c., K (.I'M. Hastings, Juno 17fb, 18'. fi. [After the t-mitmc:'accorded the Hon. Mr Pe-ves' > 'ndes!••abb' immigrants ji-il Inst session, the Government can hardly he. blamed for the influx of aliens iui-ntionwl. — En. SxANO.utn.J