'DESIRABLE' IMMIGRANTS

NZ Truth, Issue 88, 23 February 1907, Page 4

'DESIRABLE' IMMIGRANTS

AND UNDESIRABLE JOBS.

, That august barracker for the ippor down-trodden landowner and the horribly oppressed cockatoo, the Auckland " 'Erald," slobbered quite ah amount over a recent cdrisigriment of new chums. Said they were a fine lot of men arid ./evidently a most desirable class, and then added nai^** ely that the greater number of them took positions m the country districts. Of course, to a paper having the well-being of the pampered proprietors of , ; a. few thousand acres so much at heart, as the "'Erald," it's a sight to enthuse over when any considerable . quantity oi mugs happen along willipg, to go iout into the wilds and place themselves m the tender care of the epekv coves. Evidently, then, the last lot of casuals .should be looked upon m the light of a gift from a bountiful and magnanimous Providence, for is it not recorded that most of them took positions m the country? Of course, having hailed with delight the deliverance Of a crowd of new chums into the harids Of the "backbone," it is not the business of the' barracking, boodle-hunting press /to record further what is -the Usual unhaLppy lot of this extremely desirable class who "take up positions m the country." One of him I*1 '* blew, into town t'other day, having experienced that tired feeling pretty acutply', from too close contact with .on<s, specimen of these soil slave-drivers, and a leading light m the Canterbury Farmers' Union to boot. The deserter from the ranks of that "most desirable class" related his experience, which was redhot m its .way^ Quoth he : t "I had to start at daybreak and- bang 24 cows; breakfast before starting, which I had to get myself. After the cows came a little., healthy exercise with a plough, arid at 12 o'clock they sent along some tucker so I shouldn't stop .work long, enough to catch cold. Was still the soil till 3 o'clock, when I had to knock off and give the cows another go. After that move , ploughing or anything else, that would keep me going till dark. Then I could jet What supper I wanted for myself or go without. What scran there was, was cold, and if I wanted it warmed I had to do that part of the. business. They gave me a tumble-down shanty about 10 by 12' to Sleep m, and what with the rats coming thrpugh the crevices and the wind ftoing ditto, it was just Hell. Luckily there wasn't much rain, or I'd have been washed out. For this sort of slavery/ I got 15s a . .week and keep— of a

kind. The boss said he was teaching me farming, but I was such an apt pupil that I soon learned all I wanted to know about it, though he seemed quite troubled when I told him so." This is only an experience of. many hundreds of the ignorant new chum who goes on the land to be sweated and. slaved by fat-paunched farmers who themselves, as a class, are among the biggest growlers and grumblers m the colony. Yet they treat that "highly desirable" idiot Who labors for them more like a slave than a fellow freeman. And, it being such a difficult ' matter to legislate for unskilled labourers of this class, there seems little likelihood of radical improvement more's the pity. The "poor" landowner and farmer will continue to grumble about the scarcity of labor and continue to sweat and slave any of that useful commodity that happens to come his way.