The Shearers’ Trouble.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 598, 23 April 1891, Page 2

The Shearers’ Trouble.

The N.Z. Herald has a vigorous article on the trouble io Queensland, and thus concludes “It the squatters or pastoralists had treated the shearers from the first as intelligent beiogs, having minds and souls as well as bodies, they would not have been so ignorant and reckless. They have bean well fmid, ill fed, and for the most part infamously edged. No attempt bas been made to provide either intellectual or spiritual food tor these men, gathered together from all parts, on sheep farms, generally remote trom any town, Bundays have passed without any religious service ; the week-day evenings have [jeon spent in smoking and ' yarning; * the fl Su been no provision of a reading room 01 a iihrarv WIW «’•» bo* » f «w pounds. Th. farmer ».7* tl » selves rigorously aloof from lhe tuearers, s<,m< of whom, however, are invariably of better blood end education than the runholder himself, Spirits and other strong drinks are prohibited at shearing times, but when, after a few weeks or a few month, bard, dull labor, tbe work ie over, the mao is turned adrift with hie cheque until next season, Little wonder if he proceeds to • knock it down ' at the nearest public-house, and has got to go to the next, or mayhap return to town, without a cent in bis pocket. In this way, and hy this system, a nomadic tribe of men, without homes, without social ties, and, it need hardly be said, without the slightest religious belief, are created, for the exclusive benefit of wool kings—and their creditoss. ’And now they are beginning to reap tbe fruits of what they hsv» icwn.”(