"THE BETTER LAND.”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6489, 8 April 1908, Page 7

"THE BETTER LAND.”

APPLICATION FOP ASSISTANCE AWAY. AN IMMIGRANT'S FAILURE. The story of the failure of *in immigrant from the Old Country was nnioided at the meeting of the Benevolent Trustees'yesterday afternoon, and ended in the app leant for relief leaving the room after informing the members present that he had not gone there to Of insulted. THE MERITS OF THE CASE.

The 1 ‘applicant, 27 years of ago, married, with a wife a year younger, told the trustees that he had arrived in Wellington four months ago. Jlc was a resident of Bristol, and nad struck out loi fresh fields and pastures new in oonsc qucnce of ‘advice )'• had received, had paid his passage out, by, the Orion' line. An electric wire-worker by calling, he had secured three or four odd jobs, nut things wore not eo good hort as he had been led (c believe, and in fact the thing eceircd to be overdone, ife-wa/s much be ter *• iff whi e - t Homo and he desired to get back there. Ho would repay Ihe money to the trustees, and if he returned within six months by the same company as he came out Oy he would receive a 20 per cent, reduction in fare.

Mr Pc*iroe: How do you propose to pny the trustees back? —Just as you propose. Mr Pearce: That is a matter for um trustees.

the applicant lectured.

Mr D. Robertson: I do not' think you have come to the correct source, ’inis is a grand country for men with some “■go - " in them, and who do not lie down li Ka you seem to do. —X am afraid I am mis * ken. Mr Robertson : I am not mistaken. 1 have gone through the mill. I lAtme just as badly off as you to liie <-«.uniry. I did not lie down like you an* u<»ing.— It is a hard thing to get anything to do. Mr Robertson; If you cannot "et work in your particular lino, why not take up ‘anything rather than come here? You will find a job to go to before you go to sleep to-morrow if you only make up your mind. I do not know another country where you can go and get work easier than in New Zealand at the present moment, or where you can ~et oetter wages. The idea of coming (o ustmd asking for your passage is ridiculous I You should go to work whether you Ure used to it or not, and nobody will say anything to you if you are willing. Mr Pearce: If you go uack you will go back ita a failure. That is what it means. Most of the successful men here started in life without anything, ‘xney micht have had a profession but they took anything that was offered to them. It was a cosmopolitan community. Mr X?obertson: You *ire lust exactly like me 40 years ago when I landed at Dunedin looking for an engineer's job. None were wanted, and one morning I went out - looking for a job—anything to do—and gol one, and have never had to look for one since. That's an example to you. If you are stuck for a joo we will give you a little food to go on with until you can get a job.

NOT TO BE INSULTED. The chairman made another similar remark, and the applicant got up and left the room, saying as he went "All right, then. I did not come hero to he insulted. That is ail."

Mr Robertson indulged in ironical laughter. As a parting shot he said: 'T hope I have insulted you. Perhaps it will do you some good. A young fellow to come like thvt end ask for assistance! It's a disgrace to the English nation."

Mr Pearce: The first job 1 struck was sticking up posters which said "Take it for your liver's sake." ..That is not many years ago. I btovc seen many p-sjple come out from Homo, some of whom could do absolutely nothing. They would i*o down and die. I can quite* understand an Englishman doing it. 1 have seen so many of them. , Mr Truebridge: They *xre not all Englishmen, you know.

Mr Pearce : No, perhaps not, I am as English as any man. I have only ocen out here a few years. They come from' the one o’d groove and cannot get themeolvce out of it. The discussion was concluded by Mr Robertson seating that if he had had his passage money fie would hare returned to England two weeks after he arrived. Ho had then struck: a job at 10s a day, nnpacjcm" and packing bottles—some of which contained whisky—but as ho was a teetotaler he had got on all right and never looked back einco.