The Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1884.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5022, 7 June 1884, Page 2

The Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1884.

Meetings of the Unemployed have been held at Dunedin, where niore than two hundred men have declared themselves to be in urgent need of the means for getting " tucker." When that declaration is true, and when that condition of things has been I arrived at through no fault of the men — through circumstances over which . they had no control, the sufferers have the strongest possible claim upon public sympathy and private charity, upon tho national funds, and upon those which local bodies may be fortunate enough to possess. For those men who, after a prosperous spell, deliberately drink their earnings — " drink their manly strength and courage down," and then apply themselves to railing at the country and clamouring for State aid, we have not a shade of sympathy. For those semblances of men who are most clamour- j otis of all, the loud-tongued blatherskiters who demand justice, and — a hundred chances to one — will reject offered work as "not good enough," we feel the utmost contempt. They, worse luck, avert active sympathy from the men, and therefore from the women and children, who urgently need it. In Dunedin, the Mayor has applied himself vigorously to a solution of the difficulty : the City Council and the Harbour Board will each take on some twenty men, and the Government, it is reported, will offer employment at four shillings a day. Of course all temporary employment is — and of necessity must be — provided on the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread. That principle, like many another, is sound enough, but its application unfortunately presses very hardly on the men with families. The bodily strength of the men themselves must be sustained, and consequently their wives and children must endure the pinch. If the temporary work is at a considerable distance from the centres of population, so much the worse for. the women and children. Is this four-bob-a-day dribble the best plan that can be adopted by the Government ? Does it constitute a display of the quality of statesmanship ? Whilst two hundred men are crying out for work in one part of the Colony, a contractor is widely advertising for labour required on the Wellington-Manawatu railway work3, eight shillings a day being offered. Through an agent in this city, the contractor offered to take 150 men at that rate, steady employment being guaranteed for eighteen months or two years. Acceptors wouW of course have to pay their travelling expenses, say, steamer 30s and coach 4s. The agent in question received, in the space of a fortnight, about thirty applications. Some, on hearing the terms, at once pronounced them " not good enough;" others regretted that they had not the means to avail themselves of so goad a chance, and a certain proportion left for the works. Now it ought to be a j comparatively easy matter to establish an interchange system in connection with the labour market. Men out of employ in one place ought to be able to leave for another locality within the Colony at which work is assured; they might be aided to the extent of the travelling expenses, and the loan might, in such a case as that under notice, be secured by means of an advance note. We put the idea forward as one well worthy of careful consideration.