The N. Z. Times SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1909. THE UNEMPLOYMENT MEETING

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 6861, 3 July 1909, Page 8

The N. Z. Times

SATURDAY, JULY 3,1909. THE UNEMPLOYMENT MEETING

ir*fffl WHICH IB iNCOUPOHiTKD V&* "W»LIiIK1TOB 2STABLIIUIKD ISM.

,In so far as the public meeting called by the Mayor last night may be said to have devoted itself to " considering what steps shall be taken to raise a fund to be expended upon works to deal with the present circumstances of employment in the city" it was a fiasco.' The gathering did everything except what it was summoned to do. The speeches rambled 'from Beersheba to Dan. There were short lectures on various phases of economics, moro or less interesting disquisitions on trades unionism, confusod appeals to passion, reason, and prejudice. The meeting was wildly impractical, and we may be pardoned for saying it was inevitable that ifc should be so. In an article published on Thursday morning we emphasised the importance of the promoters of this meeting arming themselves with instructive data concorning the extent of unemployment—of how many men there were out of work, the number of their dependents and what approximate sum of money was required in order to provide some measure of labour during the remainder of the winter. Instead of this information being forthcoming and the meeting proceeding to a discussion of what it thought should be done about it there was an entire absence of detail and consequent discursive irrelevance in debate. Mr Wright, M.P., very rightly pointed out an omission which, we think, will practically vitiate the whole appeal to be made to the public. However, the net result of the meeting is that a committeo has been set up to raise money by public subscription, the funds so raised to bo handed to the Charitable Aid Board for the purpose of claiming a Government subsidy, tho funds thus augmented to be expended on . some scheme of tree-planting in and around the city. This has only one meaningcharitable aid for the workless workers of Wellington, and that by means of such charity the municipality is going to achieve realisation of that beautification of the. city which tho ■' Mayor, prior to his election a few months ago, emphasised to be one of the principal duties of the citizens. Under these circumstances Mr Fisher, M.P., was possibly right when, in answer to an interjection last night in regard to wages, he said, " the unionists will have to take what they can get," but we have not the slightest doubt that they will resent this rather brutal reminder of their poverty, and will, with the great majority of the citizens, deplore a co-mingling of charity with the needs of honest labour. As a matter of fact, the meeting was overwhelmingly against the charitable aid section of the resolution which the chairman and Mr Kirk had prepared, but it was declared carried. We regret this very much indeed, and doubt exceedingly whether the diversion of money from the charitable aid vote to subsidising such an undertaking as is proposed would/ be sanctioned by the Audit Department. A municipality has no more claim on the State funds in order to get money to carry out schemes for planting trees or improving reserves than it has to- a subsidy from tho same source for improving its footpaths. In addition, a scheme of tree-planting about Wellington is about the least effective that could be devised under such circumstances as now exist, for to bo of permanent value almost as much money will have to be spent on supervision as on labour. The individual who imagines that tree-planting can be done by anyone, is entertaining a delusion. It is, of course, obvious that if men are out of employment and without funds they have one primary want—work. This they must have or starve. Consequently wo may be told that it does not help their case to take exception to any plan—whatever it may be—by which they may be furnished with employment and wages. To this we dissent entirely, for it has been proved more clearly than anything in the domain of social economics that the admixture of public charity with labour is degrading to the citizenship of those who bestow and those who receive. If this ill-conceived plan of getting money by subterfuge from the State to carry out a work which tho citizens should themselves discharge is put into effect the results will be deplorably bad. It will make -the city the Mecca of all the -wastrels and loafers in the island, it will take heavy toll from the self-respect of the industrious -worker, it will do much to destroy the public conscience. When Mr Wilford, M.P., condemned the plan he was unquestionably right, and his speech last night made more clear than ever that the failure of the electors to pjace him in the Mayoral chair is very much to be regretted. He sees, as any rational man must see, that it the local bodies did their duty during the present period of embarrassment that the unemployed difficulty would, with the assistance that is being given by the Government, be reduced to practically nothing more than that residuum of inefficiency which is always with us. If his vigorous mind and sympathetic, practical nature had been bent to our municipal affairs just now we would not have had the strange spectacle of the Mayor pruning down essential expenditure with one hand and holding out the other to the Charitable Aid Department for funds with which to find work for men who could be otherwise employed. The phenomena of unemployment and i financial stress is a. difficult and com- ' olex one, but we feel very strongly

indeed that it is a grave departure from civic morality to give those hit hardest by such a crisis the unpalatable dole of Charity—for eleemosynary aid is always revolting to men in the full vigour of their powers.