The Star. TUESDAY, JULY 25, 1893.

Star (Christchurch), 25 July 1893, Page 2

The Star. TUESDAY, JULY 25, 1893.

The Unemployed Question, Tn_ City Council and the Linwood Borough Council are to be commended for the fiction they have taken in providing, t. a certain extent, for the relief of the men out of employment in Christchurch and tlie surrounding district. It is to be hoped tbat their example will be followed by any other local bodies which may have work which can legitimately, and consistently with a due regard to the intereßts of the ratepayers, be done by the men who are now standing about the street corners. To judge from the report of the meeting of the City Council last night, the members of that body eeem, on the whole, to have approached the subject in a reasonable Bpirit, They deprecated the "sturdy beggar" tone of one of the resolutions passed at the recent public meeting, and evinced a desire for accurate information ss to the number of men who are out of work, information which did not appear to be forthcoming. It may be doubted, however, whether any good will result from the motion, which the Council passed, impressing upon the Government the necessity of finding employment for the men out of work. An idea of the difficulties which : beset the Government in regard to this matter may be gathered from a consideration of the very diver, c opinions which, ' according to the letters and articles which L appear in the public press, prevail in re- . gard thereto. While some persons blame the Government for not having done enough for [ ihe unemployed, others blame it for having done too much, and some abuse it for having done anything at all, and for not ) having left the whole question of providing ' work, not only for the unemployed, but for , everybody, to private enterprise. Every step which the present Government—or, for ; the matter of that, any Government— has taken, or may take, in whatever direction, in regard to this subject, has or will be criticised from all manner of points of view, and will be condemned for all manner , of conflicting reasons. On behalf of the present Ministry, however, it may be claimed that its efforts in regard to the unemployed have been the result of a sincere desire for the welfare of those most immediately concerned, the men and their families, and have been 1 conceived and carried out in such a liberal spirit tbat some of the opponents of the Government assert that the effeot has been to enhance the evil, by causing men to flock here from other parts, and thus to overstock an already crowded labour market. The fact that such assertions are made should show that the Government needs no reminder as to the necessity for providing employment for men cut of work. The members of the Council, like other friends of the unemployed, appear to altogether overrate the power of the Government, and to underrate the difficulties which beset it. «*•&>_*