Page:Life·of·Seddon•James·Drummond•1907.pdf/72

 Relief depôts, controlled by Citizens’ Committees, were established, and there butchers sent surplus meat, while other tradesmen contributed groceries, drapery, and coal. To afford immediate relief, some of the depôts were converted into “Soup Kitchens,” and hot soup, bread, oatmeal, and potatoes were given out to the destitute poor. Many of them were Vogel’s state-aided immigrants. They were strangers in a strange land, and had come out on his glowing representations, hoping to find in the new country a means of making an independence for themselves and their families.

Unemployed met in the streets every day. These meetings were often organized by agitators, but there was a serious tone in the motions passed, and generally reason in the demands made. A manifesto issued in Christchurch declared: “We want work, not soup.” Large bodies of immigrants said that as the Government had brought them to the colony the Government must send them back, or enable them to go to some other country where work was available.

As the outcome of one of these meetings, a petition was sent to the President of the United States asking the States Government to help the poor of New Zealand by giving them facilities to reach America. “If this petition fails in its object,” it was stated, “it will at any rate be a standing record against legislators who have brought this colony into such a deplorable condition.”

In response to repeated appeals, the Government gave employment on public works. It offered single men 3s. 6d. a day, and married men 1s. a day extra, the Government to sell a day’s food to each man for 1s. 3d. This attempt to solve the unemployed problem was not popular. Public and private speculation on anything like a large scale ceased. Men were afraid to invest capital in enterprise. Harvest time was looked forward to anxiously, as the effects of a bad harvest were felt far and near. Even when Nature gave bountifully, commercial, industrial, and social depression was still very marked.

People began to practice economy with a rigour that had never been equalled in the colony before. In one year the Customs duties on the necessaries of life fell off by ten per