Unemployed in N.S.W.

Thames Star, Volume XXXXI, Issue 10498, 14 December 1903, Page 1

Unemployed in N.S.W.

The anniual report of the Mew Sout'i Wale® Labour Commissioners! attributes the 'bad ■cihiatfaotar of the year froiml ■ the industrial - point of view partly to the late drought, and partl)---to the influx of some ■thousand's of returned troopers into tine labour market. The .report states that tint classes -who suffer most were proi-is-sional men and darksi. Tli© distress, however, cannot be compared with that after the great strike of 1890 or the bank ■crash of 1893, times at which wages were reduced .all round, and! hundreds of unemployed slept "sub jove" night after night, and' had to obtain food in. any way they could. It is noteworthy tihat tuning 1 the past year wages 'have, if anything, rnioreaied. It .appears 1 that snore assistance is given to the unemployed in New South Wales than >atnytihing> else, and this may well account for the existence of a number 1 of profession-al unemployed, who. iniialke it their business, to conduct agitation of the woii'k'lessSutah agitations took place during last .MWah .and April, and it soon became evident (hat a good many of the ' ringleaders who made the most noise j took good dare not to get .any work , allotted to thienm. A, good many dis- ' repuita-blle characters endeavour to live jon public cthairity, and deliberate | fr-aiuid i« ofteni' perpetrated in order to ■• obtain f ve# raitionsi. The- worst feaI ture disclosed by the year's operations ilhifstrntss the pauperisingl effect i-f I out-door ■relief. The recipients lva.ve j hvchidedl ji, ln.rge numnber of young, ' single, a.ble-lx>died men, who have ; tried w'.th. more or lessi siucicess to' live ! :on uharity/ "Many of them-attended ■! i the office nominally in the hope"'of ppowai'iing! ■work, but in reality persistently hanging! back until they biad asct4.rai.ned that-all reliable vorfc had been given ouit. Tttien they ■oalrnia forwaa'd loudly asking for it, amd! demanding food 'when told that there was no work." The great majority of applicants, however, "are genuine- Aai ugly feature of the unemployed! agitations consists in the formation of unions and leagues amongst tit© •w'orkless to trade on public sympathy and ortfanis^e noisy - political manifeatar j tions, anything in the ■shape of work I being religiously avoidied.' At tha beginning of the report there is quoted fromi the report of the New Jersey LSibomr 1 Buireaiu a .statement to the effect' that the industrial world is under a gresit obligation to New Zealand and New South Wales for the energy they hare displayed^ in cioping k wi*h intSustrial «jid' social (juostioms.