THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 1895.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10420, 24 July 1895, Page 2

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 1895.

The Minister for Labour has presented to Parliament a memorandum, addressed to the Premier, on the subject of village settlements in Australia. The settlements in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia were inspected byMr Beeves during his recent trip, so that the memorandum is not without a practical value. Concerning Kew South Wales the report is not very favourable. Too many people have been settled in i one spot; poor land has been selected ; and too much power has been given to private boards of management. According to Air Reeves, the experience of New South Wales as regards village settlements can only teach negative lessons; but the following incidental words are worth quoting at the present time: " The bureau there [in Sydney] has disposed .of numbers of applicants for work by giving them tickets to gold-bearing localities, where they make a living by fossicking, and whither their wives and- families are often sent after a time to join them. You [the Premier] are better able to judge than I am whether anything of this sort is possible in New Zealand. I asked the chief of the bureau how inexperienced men could make a living at this work. He explained that their practice was to make up little parties containing at least one man who had had some experience at gold seeking, and who could guide,and teach his ignorant mates." Mr 11bi?ves found far more distress and discontent among workpeople in Sydney than? in the other colonies

Tiiestatepf yillageaettlementin Victoria ] s appears to be encouraging, and the c Minister draws special attention to the * alternative system, by means of which a twice as many men are employed as t would be under the ordinary method. r The system is pretty well under- * stood in New Zealand by this ] time. Ia Victoria the men are c paid by piecework, and the tenure * is almost extravagantly liberal. Mr { Reeves prefers the co-operative system \ and the perpetual lease. But it is con- ( corning the village settlements, or homestead blocks, of South Australia ! t^atthe Minister has the most favour- ■ able tale to tell. The co-operative i system obtains there, and certainly a good york, seems to have been done. The mistakes of New South. Wales have been avoided ; there .are over 3000 lessees, representing over 10,000 human beings; and "in 10 months or less 2000 human beings," mostly poor artisans or labourers and their families, have been; actually planted on the soil, $W awaj from streefc.corners a,nd lampposts, and are actively engaged in literally turning .the desert "'into, gar-: , dens." Mr Reeves remarks that such i occupation is better than relief works ,or employment on unproductive public "works; and he points out that in South Australia tliere'. is no yearly caR on a labour bureau to find work again and again for the same men. He suggests to his chief that the yrpvk of village settlement should be rigorously pushed on in New Zealand, with a view of placing all competent surplus labour on the land, observing that there cannot be finality in any other plan Xof dealing witli the unemployed. " Even the settlement of Cheviot, splendid success though it has been from every other point of view (sic), has left the ' unemployed ' difficulty in Christchurch only partially reduced." A good deal has certainly been heard aboufc the unemployed in Christchurch during, the last | month or two, and Mr Eeetes's i reference to . Cheviot is almost j pathetic in its ineptitude. The " unj employed" difficulty will never be j solved by Cheviots and Pomahakas— splendid successes of the Ministerial imagination. At the same time we see no reason why a good result should not be obtained by further development of: the village settlement system, and Mr Eeeves's observations in Australia should be of considerable use in the pursuance of the undertaking.

Since the date of our j last comment on the progress of the General Election in the United Kingdom the Liberal discomfiture has dey eloped .into an almost pitiable rout. At the close of last week the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists had made a net gain of between 60 Und 70 seats : they hadVwon about 80 seats and lost about a dozen. Many returns have yet to come in, but the probability "is that ~the , Ministry will have a majority of considerably over 100—possibly close .on 150—in the new House of Commons. A net gain of: 80 seats would—allowing for the previous Liberal majority—mean a Conservative majority of at least 130, as every seat -really gained may be regarded as counting, two on a division; It is taken from the list' of one party and added,to that of another. If every one of "the remaining elections were to be a Liberal victory—^and the-hypo-thesis, is. practically ..impossible—there would still, be a Ministerial majority,• so 'tha,t Lord Salisbury's triumph is.an accomplished fact, irhe elections of 1874 and 1886 were terrible.experiences for the Liberals, but 1895 will be a yet Blacker, year- in the "annals of ithe party. Pour Cabinet Ministers -have fallen—an unprecedented record, jwe take it, —Sir William Harcourt and Mr Shaw-Lefevre having been joined in their trouble by Mr Arnold Morley, the late Postmaster-general, and his more distinguished namesake, Mr John Morley, Chief Secretary for Ireland in the last three Liberal Ministries.'-' Many seats which may be described as traditionally Liberal have passed- into Conservative keeping; large majorities in 1892 are minorities in 1895-; and the Labour party is nowhere. /': Mr Few wick, the Liberal Labour member for Northumberland, goes back, indeed, —but:with a majority of 22, as against 2776 in 1892. lEven Wales contributes three seats to the Conservative takings—a'fact which would seem to indicate that there are..,two sides tothe Disestablishment question in the principality. In one constituency (Pembroke district), if the cable tells truth, a Conservative has been allowed a walk-over" for a, seat which the Liberals-carried three years ago. The enormous number* of ■ unopposed Conservative returns can only be explained on' the assumption that the ' Liberal party is demoralised to an extraordinary extent, and Liberal pusillanimity must- certainly be reckoned as a "factor in bringing about the Ministerial triumph. , One or two special results are worth noting. Mr Y/hitbread, a highly respected " institution" of the House of Commons, who became member for Bedford at the age of 22, is now rejected in his sixty-fifth year, having never previously experienced a reverse; while the iron must have entered into Mr Labouchere's soul when Northampton gave him a Conservative colleague. Shade of Mr Bradlaugh ! In 1892 the Conservative candidates for Northampton polled 3651 and 3235 against 5436 and 5161 polled by the Liberals. A seat will, no doubt be found fer Mr John Morley, as for Sir William Harcourt ; but Messrs Arnold Morley and Shaw-Lefevre, with the rejected subordinates, will probably have to bide their time and hope for better days. Not a single prominent Ministerialist appears to have been defeated : indeed there is not a touch of pleasant coating to the Liberal pill. As for the causes of the rout, we have previously ventured on a few coniectures, and something more may be said when the final numbers are recorded