The Waipawa Mail. Published Tuesdays, Thursdaya & Saturdays. Saturday, June 2, 1894. THE UNEMPLOYED.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XVIII, Issue 3081, 2 June 1894, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail. P ublished Tuesdays, Thursdaya & Saturdays. Saturday, June 2, 1894. THE UNEMPLOYED.

Should we blame the Government for the unemployed difficulty? The question deserves serious consideration. If we were to adopt the tactics displayed by Seddon and Company in Opposition, we should without hesitation lay upon them the burden of the existing difficulty. In the most far-fetched manner they were accustomed to ascribe all misfortunes to the fact that the late Sir Harry Atkinson was Premier. With shameless faces those now in power, but then in the position of seekers for it, descended to the lowest depths of misrepresentation. They did not quite go to the length of attributing irregularities in the rainfall to the deceased statesman, but that excepted, they held him responsible for everything considered undesirable. As illustrations in the flesh of the vilest and most contemptible political meanness, and of phenomenal unveracity, they were a spectacle to gods and men. Were wages low? Was employment scarce ? Did the exports fluctuate ? If so, all that was needed was some canting reference to the late Government, and everything was explained. What would the little knot of brazen political failures nowrunning u 8 fast to the lee shore of a loan say, if they were accused of being the cause of employment being scarce at present? They would whine, and talk about unfairness, and be ready with some vamped-up philosophy to prove that Governments cannot control the labor market. In a general sense that is true, and it was true when the reverse was pleaded in order to embarrass Sir Harry" Atkinson. But the truth did not trouble Seddon and Company to any greater extent in those days than it does now, when the most transparent falsehoods about the public accounts are deliberately circulated, and when, in the face of the necessity for closing the Government workshops one*day ou ( of every six, and for unwise retrenching all lound, Ministers still have the effrontery to

talk of surpluses. If there is a surplus, why must the weekly wages bills be cut down to the prevailing depression ? Why are the most necessary public works at a standstill, instead of being in full blast to develop the resources of the colony and find employment at the same time, if the Government had a surplus in March, 1893, of over lialf-a-million, as they say they had, and will have a surplus of over £5200,000 when Parliament meets, as was asserted by Mr Ward only the other day ? If those statements are true, then the Government are most decidedly the authors of the unemployed difficulty. But they are not true. They never were true. The Government never had a surplus except iu the way of a juggle in book-keeping, and they are at this moment, while professing to have a surplus, face to face with inability to pay their way. That is why the railway workshops are meddled with. By closing them one day out of six the Government save £IOOO a week. For the same reason public works—even works long since authorised—are not being proceeded with. The Government must save a little money or confess to financial disaster, and rather than do that they will let the working classes suffer by lack of employment, although the works that Parliament has voted money for ought to be in full swing. In the Host of Wednesday last appeared a letter from Dr Newman, one of the Wellington members, in which in the clearest manner he shows how the Government are taking men on one week, shifting them to another part of the country to be discharged, and then taking on another batch to repeat the process, so that the pretence of trying to find employment may bo kept up. If there is any desire to find work for the unemployed, let the surplus—if it exists—bo devoted to the prosecution of needed and sanctioned public works. If the surplus is a myth, as we have always said is the case, and as we still maintain, let the falsehoods relating to it be admitted. We shall not then have to blame the Government for seeing men idle while at tho same time the national chest is overflowing with superfluous cash. But the admission is not likely to be made. The Government went into office by false pretences, and intend to remain to the latest moment by the same means. Further, although in a general sense the Government are not responsible for paucity of employment, in a special Rense they are. Not so much by what they have done, but rather by what they have threatened to do, the Government have frightened capital, blunted the edge of enterprise, and so brought about a state of things in which the employing class are afraid to improve their properties or to embark in new ventures. By inducing an immigration of undesirable characters from Australia the evil has been intensified. We are brought to a pretty pass. Before us is the necessity for a loan. Behind us are the Government and their army of claquers whooping with joy at the sight of the goal. It means more money to be squandered. On one side of us are capital and enterprise, cowering and uneasy. On the other is an army of unemployed. There is only one gleam of hope in the prospect. It is the possibility that the coming session may result in honest and truthful men being appointed to supervise the expenditure of that loan which the extravagance and bad management of the party now in power have rendered necessary.