The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. FRIDAY, JULY 9,1909. THE UNEMPLOYED.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2549, 9 July 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. FRIDAY, JULY 9,1909. THE UNEMPLOYED.

Sir Joseph Ward lias -gone to London and left the unemployed problem mainly to tako care of itself. There are many hundreds of men in the Dominion at the .present time.who are absolutely at their wit’s end to know where .to obtain the means to maintain their wives and families. They are willing and anxious to work, but while our Premier is bragging to the people of other lands of the wonderful prosperity of the country, these men are walking the streets in search of employment that is • denied them. If their efforts continue unsuccessful they will have no recourse but to seek the assistance of the Charitable Aid Boards, and immediately a man does this he becomes part and parcel of a pauperising system which is one of the biggest bugbears that confront the thoughtful men of this country. From the honorable position of the, typical workman, whose proudest boast is that ho always pays twenty shillings in. jthe pound and is beholden to no-one, he descends into tire ranks of street loafers whoso chief aim is to eke out an existence, more or less precarious, without working for it. Of course, this stage is not reached in a day, but it is marvellous how rapidly it is attained. Men. who have worked steadily for ten or fifteen years living lives that have earned for them the respect of their neighbors, their employers and all associated, with them, receive a- terrible shock when for the first time they find themselves idle by compulsion, and Saturday finds them making their wav home without the wages that in the past have been forthcoming, with the regularity of clockwork, to pay the weekly bills and replenish the household store. If the workman is of especially strong moral fibre he survives the shock. Summoning up the utmost of his reserve forces lierfiends to the storm of temporary impecuniosity and, accepting charitable aid only at the last resort, still seeks the first and every opportunity to regain the position of independence which was formerly his. If, however, the worker be of tho weaker and more common mould, the very fact of having been compelled to accept cliatity inevitably saps his spirit of independence, whilst his old habit of cheerful industry is easily thrown off. By the time such a man lias been compelled to walk the streets for a few months his character has undergone a change. He no longer walks along with head erect, proud in his manhood and his priceless independence, but skulks along seeking work faintheartedly, and instead of fighting the. battle of life, lie shirks the issues at every turn. It is from this class that the grumblers of the community are taken; the men who curse any of their fellows that liaie achieved success in life and who look to the State for everything. They are never contented even when mainly kept by the exertion of others, and they help to swell the mob that ' gathers round the lamppost orators of our chief towns. The chances- arc that the children of such men will inherit tho instincts that have thus been acquired by their parents, for all experience .goes to show that the .pauper spirit clings to one generation after another with remarkable tenacity. From this it will be seen, that the unemployed problem which is causing a good deal of trouble, at the present time is not merely a question for to-day’s consideration. The .particular interests of the hundreds of men and women which will suffer if work .cannot bo found far the breadwinners during 1 the next -few months must appeal to everyone' possessed of human feelings, hut they are in reality small compared with the] .gravity of the position that is created by transforming independent self-respect-ing workers into State-aided indigents. That is why it is undoubtedly the; urgent duty not only of the central Go-

ve.rnmcxit, but also of all local bodies •representing the people, to find work for as many as possible of those at present vainly seeking work through tho ordinary channels. It is, of course, a national disgrace that there, should be any unemployed problem in New Zealand, at all, for it is simply absurd to suggest that a country capable of supporting at least ten millions of a population should have, a difficulty in absorbing a few thousand workers when the normal population stands at only one million. In other words, the Dominion should be enriched, not embarrassed, by tho presence of strong willing workers able to take their share in developing* tho country, but the Government lias shown itself so utterly incapable of handling the question of land settlement that there is no work for these men to go to. The country between Poverty and the Bay of Plenty alone could easily assimilate. the total unemployed in the Dominion at the present time, but the hopeless ineptitude of the Government has resulted in the bulk of the land being locked up from settlement. Had Parliament been sitting some definite steps might have been taken for dealing with the present crisis, hut the Premier virtually bullied Parliament into closing down, and having done so has deft upon his colleagues the. herculean task of trying to pay the wages of thousands of workless men from a purse that is well nigh empty. The position is a deplorable! one, and the only solution seems to bo for local bodies to take up the matter in earnest and in tho best possible way endeavor to tide over the next few months.