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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9244, 22 December 1888, Page 4

The Christchurch Telegraph has an article on the recent meeting which the Hon. Mr. Richardson had with the unemployed in Auckland, and what was said thereat by Mr. Goldie, M.H.R., which is unfair to him and to this locality. Our contemporary says: "'Mr. Goldie complained that in the South more money had been expended on relief works than at Auckland; the question of whether sucli relief was more needed or not was apparently, in the opinion of the enlightened Mr. Goldie, of no importance." This is an example of how to put it. When Mr. Goldie, on behalf of the unemployed, desired the Government to furnish certain works, the reply was, practically, that the Government had no funds for the purpose. The resort to that wng surely perfectly fair, that at Christchurch and Dunedin money had been found for the purpose. If money could be found for this kind of expenditure there, it ought to be forthcoming for the same kind of expenditure here. Mr. Richardson brought up, as a set-olf against the expenditure in stonebreaking or in mere relief works close to the Southern cities, the expenditure which had been incurred in the North on the village settlements. We protest against this on various grounds. The expenditure on the village settlements ought not to be classed as relief expenditure. It consists in part at least of advances which will be recovered. And otherwise it is expenditure incurred in the opening up and settlement of the country, the most legitimate and profitable work in which any Government can engage. For our own part, we have never been very clamant for merely relief expenditure, because we hold that there should be very little of than in a country situated like New Zealand, which has abundance of fertile land lying waste, the most suitable probably in the world for culture in small holdings. But it is impossible to avoid feeling somewhat strongly when it is seen that for years past many thousands of pounds have been spent annually in Dunedin and Christchurch on relief works, while we in Auckland have had almost nothing. Some years ago a sum of £80,000 was voted for relief works, all .of which was spent at Dunedin and Christchurch, and none at all in Auckland, Mr. Goldie showed that of a recent vow of £21,000, £13,000 went to Otago and £7000 to Christchurch, while only £1000 came to Auckland. Mr. Kichardson said we were well off not to require so much relief, but nobody can doubt that the greater part of the above ex--1 penditure represented, not pressure from the unemployed, but from poli- ! ticians. The men who wanted relief works here were told they could not have them, and they had to dig gum, or to try and get a living by working at a low rate in the country, or by some other means. If the same answer bad been given to agitators for relief works in the South, a good deal of money would have been saved to the colony, and Mr. Goldie would have been deprived of a grievance. The Telegraphthenproceeds: 8 Really, we shall next have Mr. Goldie and other Northern members complaining that we have more rain or sunsluue, or something of that kind, in the South than in the North, and that the matter must be adjusted." We are # quite content with our rain and sunshine. Fortunately, although the South has had a 'preponderance of political power, ana could take funds in great part contributed by the North, for special expenditure in the South, they cannot take our rain or sunshine. It they could have done so, we should have been short of both blessings long ago. Again we say that we deprecate spending huge sums in merely relief worts, which in the end leave those engaged on them worse than they were before. But not only Mr. Goldie but many others will loudly complain it tne Government carry on the system wlucn has been pursued for the last tew years of spending large sums in relief worKS in the South, and sending very little here, on the plea that we do not require it, =