STUMPED!

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2560, 22 July 1909, Page 7

STUMPED!

The voice of the unemployed is heard throughout the land. He , is to be counted in tens, hundreds, and thousands. Every township has its quota and local bodies from one end of New' Zealand to the other are doing what they can to find work and wages for those whose small savings are daily dwindling down as they tramp the streets looking for the jobs that do not exist in Hod’s own country. In the midst of it all a deputation of Wellington citizens went the other day to the Minister for Labor and asked that the Government might do something. They got their answer swiftly. There was no windy palaver, just plain man with plain, cold facts—facts that probably no one would find more unpalatable than tho gentleman who has run off with the key of Parliament House. In plain English the cash-box is empty. Mother Hubbard’s dog will have to go without its bone. The State, says Mr Millar, can provide work for only 700 men out of the nujny thousands who now stand idle, and already most of the 700 have been engaged. Where all the money is to come from to pay for even tho public works that have been authorised he does not know. They had already been told that they were the most heavily-taxed country in tho world. Mr Millar hoped the local bodies would do what they could to find work for the unemployed. Brighter times were sure to come in the spring. The prime reason for the Government’s inability to spend money is that it has no authority from Parliament to do so. That Parliament, which ought now to he assembled in Wellington and meeting the position, is sitting at home warming its hands over the fire, and drawing its Very comfortable salary out of a bankrupt public’s (pocket. In tho meantime Mr Millar presents his com- • pliments and hopes the local bodies will, do what they can.—“ The Citizen.”