THE UNEMPLOYED —A PRACTICAL SCHEME.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1260, 23 April 1896, Page 35

THE UNEMPLOYED —A PRACTICAL SCHEME.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —In order to afford an opportunity of testing whether or not the unemployed can be successfully engaged as market gardeners, I have obtained my father s consent to grant tho free use of from 10 to 20 acres of his farm at Johnsonville for a term of two or more years, upon conditions that sufficient capital can bo raised on co-operativo principles to properly utilise the land and employ a full complement of men. The land is admirably suited for a market garden, and 10 acres of tho area offered were cultivated and cropped last summer, therefore no difficulty will be experienced in working it. It should also prove ample for a test. The value is considerable, being assessed for local taxation purposes at the rate of <£'27 10s per acre. 'Phis offer will enable those citizens that recently conducted an anti-Chinese movement to show how far they will carry their theories into practice. Hundreds of Chinese aro making very good money out of the supply of vegetables for the city, and have to pay in some cases from <£s to <£lo an acre per annum in rent for their land. It seems to mo disgraceful that any of our own people should be idle whilst Chinamen flourish and make money, which they send or take away eventually, impoverishing the Colony. The sooner practical steps are taken to intercept their trade the hotter for everybody.—l am, Ac., Frank T. Moon. Ngahauranga, April IS, TO THE EDITOR. “ Poverty, thou half-sister of death, thou cousin gennan of hell, where shall I find force of execration equal to the amplitude of thy demerits ?” — -Burns. Hut, —On thinking over the Kaitaugata horror and the Brunnerton disaster one sees that tho following is the fact in both cases, viz. :—The victims died in perfect destitution. Now, sir, as miners are generally paid better wages than ordinary labourers, it must follow that all labourers throughout the Colony die in destitution. Such being the case, it shows that tho men are not paid fair wages, and while great syndicates are massing wealth, miners and labourers can barely keep tho wolf from the doors of their hovels. That this is the case there is ample proof; for it is well known that nearly half of the industrial class die in the charitablo institutions of tho Colony. Yet there are some men who aro well pleased with a system that produces such dire results. The fat man likes the system, the land shark likes the system, the usurer likes the system, the syndicator likes tho system, and the National Ass. likes the system. But the workers, the wealth-producers, tho bees of tho human hive, starve and die under the accursed system. Sir, our Liberal Government have done much and aro still bent

on doing more for the good of the people of this Colony. May they succeed in doing justice to the masses by seeing, that the labourer receives the fruit of his labour, which can be done only by Stale intervention and co-operation. —I am, Ac., Friend of the People. Wordsworth street, Wellington.