FREE LANCINGS

Observer, Volume XI, Issue 750, 13 May 1893, Page 1

FREE LANCINGS

Here shall the Press the People's Bight main-

tain, Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain ; Here patriot Truth her glorious precepts draw, Pledged to Religion. Liberty and Law.

The cool assurance of the Midland Bailway Company of New Zealand is delightful. This sapient coterie of English capitalists has made a bad bargain with the colony, and now repents itself of the liability it has so inoautiously incurred. And it would like very much to free itself from that liability. Very natural that it should. And it would very much like to secure its freedom at no loss to itself. Ah ! so like a comfortable coterie of calculating capitalists. But appearances seem to indicate that the desire of the syndicate to get out of its contract with the colony under conditions so agreeable to itself is not very likely to be gratified. The country has certain rights in the matter, and Mr Seddon is determined that these rights shall not be sacrificed to the interests of the capitalists who are concerned in this venture. The company has indiscreetly entered upon the construction of what must prove to be an unprofitable railway line for many years -to come, and it is very difficult indeed to see why such a palpable white elephant should be shunted on to the general taxpayers simply in order to relieve the pockets of incautious speculators.

This Midland railway never had even the slightest prospect of being constructed from the public exchequer. True, the people of Canterbury agitated persistently for it, as an antidote to the then existing depression of trade, urging that it would give immediate employment to surplus labour and would when constructed be valuable in opening up the coal and timber resources of the West Coast of the South Island and in bringing these products to Christchurch and other adjacent markets. Bat the arguments in favour of the work were greatly outweighed by those against it. These latter showed conclusively that the line would traverse a mountainous and difficult country wherein there could be comparatively little settlement, that the passenger traffic must necessarily be small for many years to come, and that for the conveyance of coal and timber the railway could not possibly compete in point of cheapness with carriage by water. Consequently, Parliament would not countenance the proposal, and more especially so in view of the fact that the North Island Trunk and Otago Central Railways, both works of great national importance, were still only in contemplation.

Thus matters stood when Sir Julius Yogel returned to the colony early in the eighties. Most of us remember how he was elected with a united Canterbury phalanx pledged to this Midland Railway, and how a bill was carried through Parliament by his Government granting immense concessions in land for the oonstruotion of the line. People pooh-poohed the idea that any company would embark upon such a doubtful venture, but ere long the formation of the Midland Bailway Company became an accomplished fact ; and, after much negotiation with the Government and many delays, the construction of the Midland Bail way was actually commenced.

Ere the first section of the line was well completed, however, the company seemed to have repented of its undertaking. Negotiations were commenced with the Government with the view of getting them to relieve the company from its undertaking, and these negotiations have continued ever since. Here is the latest proposal cabled from London :— The Midland Bailway Company are prepared to finish the line to Springfield if the Government will give them £850,000 for their land grant, payable in ten half-yearly instalments. In addition, the Company want the Government to give £100,000 for the line from Belgrove to Motueka, to relieve them of their liability to construct the BeeftonNelson section, and purchase the lines already built from Brunnerton each way.

The demands of the company are absurd, but even if they were not so preposterous it is to be hoped that this and succeeding Governments will resolutely set their faces against every proposal in the direction of saddling the people of New Zealand with this burden. This Midland railway work should not have been entered upon for the next thirty or forty years at least, and it would be folly now to attempt to construct the line with public funds or borrowed money. And even if it were constructed to-morrow, why should the colony be made to bear the annual loss that must attend its working for many years ? Viewed in any light, it is not easy to see what the country has to gain by taking over the line, while on the other hand it has very much to lose.

The argument is used that we should endeavour to get back the million acres of land given as a concession to the company. Get it back? The land has not gone from the country ; it is still with us, and must remain with us. If the company is to recoup its outlay in any way, it must be by the sale of these lands, and if they are sold we may reasonably expect that they will be settled upon by those who buy them. Therefore, what matters it who owns them so long as they are made productive and contribute their share to the general wealth of the country. Certainly, the benefits of State ownership would be very dearly bought at the cost of our acceptance of the bad bargain which the Midland Railway Company has made, leaving out of question the money that the company also demands. If the railway were finished to-morrow, I candidly believe the Government would make a bad bargain by accepting it as a gift.

It is a good many years since Charles Dickens sketched 'the Circumlocution Office ' for an appreciative public to laugh at, but the art oi ' how not to do it ' still

flourishes, even in the colonies, where, perhaps, the nearest thing we have to the Circumlocution Office is the Custom House. The aptness of the comparison will commend itself at once to such unfortunates as have undergone the ordeal known as ' passing entries.' The protracted delays, worries, bother, loss of time, and loss of temper involved in getting goods through the Customs long since called into existence that useful body known as Customs' agents, who by dint of continual wrestling with Customs' House officials and untying of red-tape have become inured to the work, so to speak. No sane man who has wasted a day in trying to get goods through the Customs repeats the experiment. Some day, we shall 'change all that,' and common-sense will oust officialdom and red-tape, and the task of paying duty on imported goods will be rendered hardly more laborious or intricate than the purchase of a postage-stamp or the despatch of a shilling ' wire.'

He is a tradesman carrying on business in Queen-street, Auckland, and is the employer of a number of girls. The parents of these girls probably consider that the man is fairly honourable, and that having a wife and family, their children would at least be safe with him. But what is the fact 1 Listen, parents, and beware ! This man is of ' warm ' moral character, and to his customers and others who frequent his premises he ridicules the idea that these girls who are working for him have a right to lay claim to either virtue or honour. He hold? them in low esteem and boasts of his amours amongst them. And yet the law is not able to take hold of such a man.

There has recently happened in connection with him a scandal which should be a warning to all who are in the habit of allowing their daughters to enter the service of anyone willing to engage them, without regard to the character of the master. One of the girls employed in his service was of a good family in Auckland, albeit a family in greatly reduced circumstances. It was observed after a time that the girl and her master were on very intimate terms, and that they spent a good deal of time together in his private room. Eventually, to cut the story short, it happened that his son was one day the witness of one of the stolen interviews, with the result that he told his mother all that occurred. Stormy scenes have since been the orders of the day, and the injured wife, with a loaded revolver in her hand, has even sought the girl with the intention of avenging herself. Fortunately she did not fiud her. The girl fled, and has since gone to the country. Why the revolver bullet should be intended for the girl instead of the man who has wronged them both is not easy to comprehend.

It is desirable in the interests of morality that this man should be exposed, and I shall consider it a duty I owe to society to further investigate the circumstances of this cruel affair with a view to more complete disclosures. Our laws for the protection of women and girls are too lax. We should at least have on our Statute book a measure providing for the severe punishment of any man who shall have been proved to have accomplished the ruin of any girl employed by him, for, after all, this is a crime beside which the

lesser offences of depriving girls of halfholidays or failing to furnish them with seats at their work fade into absolnte insignificance. # # #

Another occurrence of a somewhat similar and' even more shameful character has recently come to my knowledge. The victim is a young girl of sixteen, who was accustomed to travel frequently on one of our small steamers. She was unfortunate enough to attract the attention of the captain, who in this case also is a married man and the father of a family, and he lost no opportunity of improving the acquaintance. Friends warned the parents of the girl, but they would not believe that anything was wrong, and when the scandal had gone so far that it was the talk of the district where the parties lived the wife of the captain went to the mother and warned her, but in vain.

Now, the poor girl's future is ruined by the consequences of the man's villainy, and the parents are bitter in their anger against her. The wife of the captain has left her husband, and the chief offender in this aflair escapes punishment. This is a pity. The caße is one that calls for the intervention of the recently-formed Society for the Protection of Women and Children, and I hope to hear that they have investigated the circumstances with the object of ascertaining whether the girl's seducer cannot be punished for his grossly cruel behaviour. Verily, the law for the protection of young girls still requires amendment.

Nearly six weeks have elapsed since Alexander Scott was found guilty of the murder of William Thompson and was condemned by Mr Justice Conolly to die. And yet the unhappy man's fate, up to the time of writing, still trembles in the balance, and he is - torn by the conflicting emotions of hope and fear. ' Try to put yourself in his place/ as Charles Eeade used to say ; try to realise, if but for five minutes, this wretched man's situation through the weeks which have elapsed since the dread sentence was pronounced. Waking and sleeping, he is ever tortured by suspense, for he knows not the hour or the minute at which he may be told : ' You have but another day or two to live.'

Putting aside the question of the rightfulness or the wrongfulness of capital punishment, its expediency or its inexpediency, concerning which I have already expressed an opinion, is it right or proper or fitting, or consonant with common humanity and decency that this man should be kept in this awful suspense through six weary weeks ? And why has he been so kept ? In order that the whole case might be re-opened, and the whole of the evidence, together with the Judge's ruling on various points, and the verdict returned by the jury, might be reviewed by the Executive in Wellington, In other words, Alexander Scott, having been put upon bis trial once in a court of law and found guilty, is once more on his trial before the Premier of the Colony and his Ministers, and the elaborate speeches of counsel, pro and con, the careful summing up of the judge, and the earnest and painstaking deliberations of the jury may go for nought 1

Why, the Executive have even secured the guidance and advice of the Government Analyst, Mr Skey, to re

view the evidence of Mr Pond, who may not bfl one whit Mr Skey's superior in technical knowledge, skill and experience, but who certainly has this trifling advantage over his Wellington confrere— that he happens to have actually made the analyses in connection with the case, while Mr Skey can know little or nothing more about the ins and outs of the business than any intelligent layman. And two of a trade, it should not be forgotten, rarely agree. There is such a thing, you know, as professional jealousy, even amongst Government analysts. Bearing this significant fact in mind, what is the result of Mr B key's communications to Government on this caae likely to be ? Is not his ' evidence ' under the circumstances calculated to confuse and unsettle the minds of the gentlemen who are engaged in trying Scott at second-hand ?

I would like to ask why this absurdity in the case of condemned prisoners is permitted ? I may be told that it is due to the Executive's anxiety that every possible chance may be given to men lying under sentence of death, and that miscarriages of justice may be jealously guarded against. \Vith all reasonable precautions of this kind I am heartily in sympathy, but I say that for the Executive to reopen the whole of the evidence in a murder trial and review the whole proceedings at that trial, putting themselves virtually in the position of judge and jury, is to render the proceedings in the Supreme Court unnecessary and ridiculous, to rob the judge of the dignity and importance attaching to his office, and to deprive the jury — business men most of them -of the time and attention they should be devoting to their own affairs.

I have gone to considerable trouble during the last week to gain some definite information concerning the reported invasion of our gumfields by Austrians, and the facts that have come to my knowledge as a result of these investigations have startled me very much. That they will also prove startling to my readers, I have little doubt. It is unquestionably time that the people of New Zealand woke up to a recognition of the evil consequences that must follow this influx of Austrians. Did I say Austrians ? Well, lam wrong. They are not Austrians, and here is a very important point for your consideraation. They are Kuseian Slavs, and consequently are very much more undesirable as colonists than Austrians would be. It has been said that they have not come in large numbers, but this is untrue.

There are at the present time on the gumfields of Auckland between two and three thousand of these people, and they are arriving in droves by every steamer. Moreover, they will continue to arrive. Hundreds are now in Sydney ready to come across, and reliable information is to hand that thousands of their countrymen are following them. Unless some meaas can be found to check this undesirable influx, there will be upwards of five thousand of these Hussian Slavs in Auckland before the year has ended, and there is every reason to expect that even then each incoming steamer from Australia will dump an additional Bwarm down ou our shores. Who can tell where it is all to end ?

I have been endeavouring to find out who the M.W.E. is who is credited by the Sydney papers with introducing these people to the gumfields of the Northern Wairoa. Mr Mitchelson assures me that he is not responsible, and I believe him. Indeed, it would be difficult to see what object he could have ia doing so, because he is no longer a member of the MitchelBen firm which controls certain large gumfield.B in the Northern Wairoa. Who, then can he be ? Is he really a member of Parliament at all ? These are questions that vuiy be solved, for Mr Mitchelson, believing that the article was inspired by someone in Auckland, has taken action in Sydney to discover its authority, and is determined to spend some money if needs be to find out who is at the bottom of it.

But the fact remains that these hordes of Russian Slavs are amoDgst us, and are very rapidly working out our gum deposits. Mr Mitchelson admits that there are about three hundred of them on the firm's lands, but, while disowning any connection with bringing them there, he does not see why they should refuse to let them dig for gum. They are on almost every other field in the North, and have even extended their operations right away up to the North Gape.

It is about twelve months since the first shipment of these Bussian Slavs made their appearance in Auckland, and it is pretty certain that they came because of the good fortune that had befallen a compatriot from their native village who was already here. He had sent home a substantial cheque, some say from the profits of gumdigging and others from the proceeds of a winning ticket in a Melbourne Cup B weep, but at all events it was from a lucky hit of some kind. The news spread amongst the people of the village, and then travelled to the neighbouring towns, with the result that the present-lamentable emigration towards this part of New Zealand set in at once and has continued ever since.

The Russian Slav, like the Chinaman, is ' peculiar ' in many of his little ways. He has a frugal miud, for example, oh very friagal ! Lives, like John, on the smell of an oiled-rag. And, like John again, he is extraordinarily industrious. He gathers honey— l mean gum — all the day, and storeß it up at night, and keeps it stored very often for many days and nights ' holding on for a rise.' Ob, yes, he knows all about that, and is fully equal to the task of telling how many beans make five ! The Russian Slavs are gregarious creatures — amongst themselves. Birds of a feather, they flock together. They hunt not in couples -as do the ordinary gumdiggers - but in droves of six or eight, or more. Indeed, they sometimes advance like a company of skirmishers, extending fully a quarter of a mile in line, so that they do not miss any likely spots where gum may be hidden. And their method of working is very unpopular with the ordinary bands. They follow the latter, watch them at work, and when they have moved on to another spot, they fall to work on the hole just abandoned and explore it for all it is worth. This ingenious little plan Eaves a good deal of digging and quite often rewards the Slavs with a sack full of gum passed over by the other fellows.

: It is interesting to note the expression on the face of an ' old hand' as he watcheH a Kuseian Slav digger unearth the treasure ne ought to have found and didn't. The Eussian Slavs save more money than English or colonial diggers. The latter want tinned meat, ' soft tommy,' sardines, sugar, jam, tea and coffee, and even preserved milk and batter when times are good. The Russian Slav contents himself wit)] rice and sugar. And as he never goes on the spree, and works hard, he soon knocks up a cheque, as a general thing, which cheque is promptly despatched to his own country. He imports from the latter everything he requires. Even the tobacco he smokes (the only luxury he allows himself) is specially imported for him or to his order. And he sends more than two-thirds of his earnings out of the country.

Let U3 see what this means : I have been informed on what ought to be excellent anlhority, that there are quite 2,000 of these foreigners scattered over the Northern Wairoa, and that they earn on an average at least 50s each per week. Very well, let us make a calculation : 2,000 men at £2 10s a week each— £s,ooo a week. Deduct 61 a week each for ' tucker,' tobacco, etc. — an ample allowance in the case of these Russian Slavs — and we have a net sum of £3,000 per week over. This means that £3,000 a week (net) is being earned by aliens on our gumfields, and sent away to Dalmatia or some such place as soon as it is earned ! And £3,000 a week means exactly £156,000 a year ! But if some of our other informants are correct, these figures would have to be nearly trebled to show the sum annually earned by aliens and sent out of the country to enrich a foreign land 1

The gumdigger's lot is not without its hardships. It is a rough life, and yet what a ' stand-by ' our gumfields have been in times of depression such as that from which the colony has just emerged I The gumfields have supported thousands, still support them, and if all I hear is true, may be relied upon to support them for many years to come. So far so good. But is it just or fail' or reasonable that our gumfields should be made to absorb the surplus labour of the Russian or Austrian border states, or other distant foreign countries, and that without benefiting us to any appreciable extent in return ? I say ' no,' and I say it as emphatically as I can ! Let us keep our gumfields for our own unemployed, who will at least spend the bulk of the money they earn in the colony they have made their home.

If steps are noG taken to drive these Russian Slav invaders away, the result will be' this : These foreigners will band together to lease our gumfielda - such a scheme has been already mooted amongst them - and' then tihey will 'boss the situation,' they will keep possession of the fields, and the Englishman, the Irishman, the Scotchman and the Colonial will, be left out in the cold 1 It seems the Government can do nothing to prevent them coming in without an Act of Parliament, and that even if such an Act were paßsed the Queen would refuse her assent to it, because it would be calculated to involve Great Britain in awkward relations with the Power concerned. Consequently, we have little to hope for by prohibiting this class of immigration.

The matter has engaged the serious attention of many people lately, but to my mind the best suggestion to meet the evil comes from Mr Jackson PaJmer, M.H.R. He suggests that an Act should be passed providing that all gumdiggers bo licensed upon the payment of a small license fee, and that the Act should provide that no license should be issued to any person who was not a naturalised British subject or who had not resided in the colony for a given time. This suggestion is certainly worthy of consideration. These foreigners come solely for the purpose of digging gum, and if we can find means to close the gumfields to them it is quite certain that they will cease to come.

And so Newton is anxious to have a working men's club. At all events, we are assured so, but I very much doubt that the majority of the people in the district have the slightest inclination in that direction. Personally, I have no hesitation in saying that the establishment of such a club— assuming it to be run on the lines of similar institutions elsewhere -is by no means desirable. The working man's club is too often but another name for a sort of unlicensed public-house, where drinking is permitted to go on at all hours, week days and Sundays alike, without the police being empowered to interfere. And drinking is by no means the only evil to be feared in connection with these places. They are as often a? not given up to gambling as well. Of course, I know I shall be met with the inevitable argument: If the well-to-do portion of the community have their clubs, why should the working man be debarred from the same privilege ?

But I would make no distinction whatever between the respective clubs, so far as gambling is concerned. Certainly not. "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander ; the rich man's club should be placed on precisely the same footing as the poor man's in this one particular — and gambling be rigidly prohibited in both. Very many Aucklanders, formerly well-known and respected citizens, have been ruined by ' high play ' at certain clubs I wot of. One of these men, formerly a shining light in local legal circles, is now driving a cart in San Francisco, while several others hailing from Auckland, and more or less known to fame, are living a similar hand-to-mouth life in the same city. Another member of the legal profession, who died by his own hand, and plunged numbers of his unfortunate clients into poverty by his wholly unexpected end and the causes which led up to it, will be well remembered. And high-play wa3 the rock on which all these men split.

There are some arguments in favour of clubs — working men's or wealthy men's— provided "they are conducted on proper lineß. But so long as the club charter empowers proprietors or managers of such places to shut their doors in the faces of the police, and practically do as they please behind those doors, so long will their existence be open to the gravest objection.

There is certainly one forcible objection to be urged against these clubs. Their existence is a shameful injustice to the men who, year by year, pay a heavy licensing fee for the privilege of dealing in wines, ales and spirits. The proprietor of a working men's club is Bimply, in ninetytiiue cases out; of a hundred, an unlicensed publican, who, because he i 3 permitted to masquerade under the name of a club proprietor, escapes the pains and penalties of the publican and snaps his fingers in the face of interference. Newton suffers from no lack of hotels, and the facilities for gambling are plentiful and easy, so that I hope the proposed club will be discountenanced everywhere.