South Canterbury Times, MONDAY, JULY 24, 1893.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7269, 24 July 1893, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, MONDAY, JULY 24, 1893.

When the Female Franchise and the Direct Veto, the Half-Holiday, the Cheviot Estate, and a few other troublesome questions have been somehow disposed of, it would be well for our statesmen to tackle seriously the problem keeping the working population employed all the year round. It is pitiful that every winter there should be hundreds of men clamouring for' employment, that means food, in each of the large towns; and pitiful that no effort is made to silence for the future “the cry of the unemployed.” So long as the staple industries of the colony are the raising of wool and grain, there must be during the winter season a large number of men for whom the private employer has nothing to do. This is as plain as noonday, yet it often said that if the men who are out of work would only be “ self-reliant,” if they would only go and look for work, they could find it. A simple kind of arithmetic will prove conclusively that this is impossible. The men are not wanted on farm or station, and where else could they be expected to find work ? The unemployed can not find work if there is no work for them to do It would be as sensible to tell the farmers and the paatoralista, if in the busy season there was* dearth of men, that if they would only be self-reliant they could do without the meh they sought for. Self reliance is a good dog, but mutual help is a better, and with the foresight and thrift which are demanded of the men, there should go some foresight and charity on the part of employers, in the way of holding over work from the busier to the duller reason of the year. And this applies to the individual employer, the local bodies and, the general Government.

The Legislature might set the example by directing the Public Works Department to slack off work as much as possible in the busy half of the year, in order to be able to employ more hands in the dull season. The local bodies could be pat under presure to follow suit, through conditions as to the payment of subsidies And if the individual employers d ; d not take the hint, the example might in a considerable degree be brought home to them by compelling each district to provide for its unemployed. The present system, under which the first and final appeal for help is made to the general Government, is a perfect plan of “ how not to do it,” and how never to do it.