THE GOVERNMENT AND THE UNEMPLOYED.

Waikato Times, Volume XV, Issue 1248, 29 June 1880, Page 3

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE UNEMPLOYED.

TO THE EDITOR. Sik, — I presume it cannot be out of place at this particular crisis to enquire, " How are those out of employment to be provided for ?" The question is not what Government is responsible for the present state of the labor market ; as one administration after the other has shown only too willing a spirit to accept the responsibilities of its predecessors— it is far .beyond that. The present Government has boldly faced the great difficulty of the finances of the colony, but in doing so has suspended, in a great measure, public works. This has had the effect of increasing the number of the unemployed ; subsidies to local bodies have also been sacrificed upon the same altar, thereby aLo swelling the ranks of those requring i employment. A road to retrenchment is pointed out by the Railway Commission ! by reducing the number of railway servants, and the Civil Service Commission points unmistakeably to the adoption of the same principle to a serious extent. The discharging of most of these Government employees means also throwing out of employment the servants and, others who found service under them. I need go no further, as instances are too numerous to be detailed in a single letter, for the system that begets the question of unemployed is similar to a great river receiving those tributary streams that not only swells but sometimes overflows its banks, thereby threatening those peaceful habitations which appear to be secure from its influence. The question of employment for those who would be thrown out of work by the measures the Government have decided upon adopting, and others who also suffer in consequence, evidently presented itself to the mind of the Executive in no small degree upon assuming office, as they, through the House, appointed a "Royal Commission on local industries." A question of greater magnitude, of more serious import, for the present and future of this land could not have been remitted to any set of men. The upper and middle class of society have been looked throughout all the departments of State up to the present, for we hear through the Royal Commission of the great army of clerks, and who are in the employ of the Government. Persons filling those situations have invariably been drawn, not from the lower orders of society. The reason may be (and possibly it is the best reason) that they were not fitted to fill them. Granted. Sir, the time has arrived when the lower class — the working men— are to be cared for, and what fancy, flits across the eyes of some of our M.H.R.'s in Wellington. Their reasoning powers are invoked to provide soup kitchens and destitute asylums. Is this what the working man has been brought out from Europe for ? To be fed as a pauper — to have a pauper's residence assigned him when his services can no longer be employed. This certainly cannot be ; „the Government and the House will not carry the question of retrenchment to such au extent. The voice of the working man, his wants — aye, and his position too, — must be paramount even to retrenchment in the hands of the present Treasurer. As I have previously said, the question did present itself to the mind of the Executive. Sir, what we must try to do is to impress upon the House now in session the employment of our population by means of local industries — manufactures especially. Give them.employmenti 1 and you can iQvy your taxe.g, for it is as tlwt

great statesman, Pitt, justly observed — " Give an Englishman work, and he will grumble and pay. " The present outory of want of labour is the only warning note of the great avalanche that awaits the colony.. > Her rising generation — the children of colonists and those whom the Government have brought out— are being thrown upon the labour-market every day. The situation every day will become more critical, aud more difficult to deal with. Cannot a memorial be addressed now to the Government upon the question ? It is evident it will be presented to an ear already predisposed in its favor, and in place of soup kitchens, asylums, charitable aid, relieving officers, &c, &c, the creating nnd supporting of which mean* a. great national outlay, and a small army of officials, let the. moneys that would be devoted to such low, contemptible, debasing objects, with others that are now being uselessly spent in 1 accomplishments in other branches of the State, oe applied to introducing trades arid manufactures, which will be the means of building up a free, self-dependent, energetic population. — I am, &c, Albeut Potter. Hamilton, June 24, 1880.