MR G. A. SALA ON LABOUR IN AUSTRALIA.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1521, 5 March 1886, Page 3

MR G. A. SALA ON LABOUR IN AUSTRALIA.

Mr 6. A. Sala, recently addressing the representative of an Australian journal, said:—" I recognise that labour is needed everywhere in Australia more working men, more domestic servants, more young men, more intelligent men, more Scotsmen —as many more as ever you like. I think I have also been able to discern the people who are not required here. These are the black sheep of good families, loafers, idlers, young men who come out and spend their money, drift into dissolute habits, get remittances to take them home again, where they do nothing but abuse the Colonies, of which they know nothing, and in which their presence was likely to do more harm than good. I have been preaching lay sermons for a good many years; and were I not too old and too wicked I would get into some pulpit at home and preach as a minister, for certainly ministers have more influence over their congregations than lecturers have over audiences. I would say to my hearers—' My capable, hard-working, shrewd, intelligent brethren, go to Australia. Ton and your wives and your children, go out, work hard, and be assured that with or without capital you will, by hard working, frugality, and sobriety, greatly better your condition. Not only that, but you will also better those whom you leave behind. You will give more and more backbone, more and more muscle, more and more red blood to the body politic of Australia.' But I would also add—'My idle brethren, my stupid brethren, my vicious and my drunken brethren, stop at home and gravitate to your natural refuge, the poorhouee. Do not go out to Australia to become a nuisance and a pest there.' Then, in more forbearing language, I would amicably advise young men in Eogland of mere clerical attainments, who can at best only hope to be bookkeepers or shop assistants, to think twice, nay thrice, before they travel 13,000 miles to find a country where the native youths equal, if they do not excel, them in the ability demanded by the requirements of the counting-house and shop counter."