The unemployed were not treated as a homogeneous group. Policy makers and well placed individuals in society drew a distinction between the 'deserving' and the 'undeserving' unemployed. The former were identified in New Zealand as:
settlers who, while cultivating their holdings, or, perhaps, only their gardens, were in the country, grouped in villages or near stations. They provided the general, agricultural, and pastoral labour, and were to be relied upon in case any of their richer neighbours wished to employ them. In towns these men were householders usually residing in the suburbs, and there they carried on occupations which the requirements of cities demanded CAJHR, 1895 H-6: 1).
Andersen stated that the 'undeserving' were considered as: "men who would not work if they could or would not take work under a certain wage or who through extravagance of various kinds had failed to make provision for a period of slackness" (Andersen, 1916: 431-432). This distinction was central to the set of attitudes surrounding unemployment and the treatment of the unemployed, and was one which was also at times used by the working men. Representatives of the unemployed workers were usually at pains to urge government that they were a 'deserving' group (Campbell, 1976b).
This classification ignored the fact that itinerant seasonal rural labour was an important and necessary part of not only the agricultural sector, but the New Zealand economy (Martin, 1982). This meant that outside the planting, harvesting
and shearing season, many of these workers were out of work. Their
employment, though important to the economy, was shaped by the rhythms of
'undeserving' had two functions. Firstly, it was used as part of a strategy to divide and rule the unemployed by having potential 'ring-leaders' discredited. Secondly, it was used to legitimate the targeting of job creation schemes towards the skilled unemployed, whose unemployment was said to be beyond their control.
The
New Zealand Herald,
in applying the strategy of 'divide and rule', ridiculed a well known 'ring-leader' of the unemployed workers in the South Island, Mr Boardman. In an article which was intended to discredit the leading campaigner of job creation policy, it was reported:We are credibly informed that in case of one of the leaders of the 'unemployed' agitation, the
question was put to him by a gentleman, 'What is your occupation' 'A miner' was the rejOinder.
'Why' said the gentleman, 'The Bay of Islands Coal Co. , are wanting miners; you ought to be the last man out of work! The answer was a significant one, 'who is going to work in that d ... d hole?' These are the men who ever looking for work, but in their hearts are praying to providence that
they may never find it (New Zealand Herald, September 3, 1880).
Despite press attempts to discredit Mr Boardman, he continued to be a leading campaigner for the state to accept responsibility of pakeha unemployed men.8 However, such reports were used by opponents of the job creation policy as justification for the state not to intervene in the labour market. It may also have been a basis for policy makers' claims that it was 'usually the very worst class of labourers who agitated for job creation' (NZPD, 1884).
The classification of the unemployed into 'deserving' and 'undeserving' was coupled with a belief that many of the unemployed did not deserve wages they were paid on relief works and that many were unemployed because their work was second-rate . John Bradshaw, Chairman of the Canterbury Farmers' Cooperative Association claimed that: "the Ashburton County Council at one of its meetings went into figures and found that it had obtained about £40 worth of work for every £90 paid to the unemployed" (Bradshaw, 1888: 176). Thus many of the unemployed were considered ipso facto 'undeserving' and by implication their unemployment was believed to be a consequence of their slackness.
8 The effect of unemployed workers' agitation sometimes was rewarded with work as reported in the
Lyttelton below.
MEETING OF TIlE UNEMPLOYED. Yesterday forenoon some 1 50 to 200 men assembled round the recognised agitation lamp-post in Cathedral Square, in response to an invitation called upon the unemployed to meet there. Mr Boardman stepped on to the rostrum, and, in answer to a question asking who he was, infonned the meeting that he had started the flfSt Protection Society in New Zealand. He recommended the men who were out of employment to fonn themselves into ranks and march through the principle streets of the City, then to fonn a cordon round the Government offices, and never leave till they got employment. Similar advice given by Mr Boardman in Dunedin was followed by 213 unemployed workers being put on to work the next day (Lyttelton Times, March 4, 1886).
This view was put more plainly by the Minister of Immigration, Mr Rolleston, who claimed that in New Zealand, "unemployment was due to shiftlessness or incompetence" (NZlIA, 1950: 6). That is, in a pioneering society there was always work for those who were willing to work, and therefore the unemployed were themselves to blame for their unemployment (Simpson, 1990).
A.A. Connell, a successful business man and an aspiring Member of Parliament, told a meeting of workers in Auckland, many of whom were unemployed, that:
There is a certain class of unemployed, and when you offer him work he says I want seven, eight, or ten shillings a day ... that is the kind of man no employer would care to engage ... But as for a man who is prepared to work for a wage -I tell you I can shake that fellow by the hand (Connell, 1887: 7).
Because of the reluctance at times by some unemployed workers to accept employment at what they considered unsatisfactory wages, the unemployed were thought not to be hard pressed for employment. In 1884 the Immigration Officer for Christchurch informed the Minister of Immigration that, "there were . . . a large number of men out of work, many of them will not accept reasonable wages" (Immigration Department, File Number 1M 4/1/2, National Archives). What was meant by reasonable wages was not explained. However, it was understood that unemployment provided employers with the opportunity to reduce wages, and therefore workers' or government actions which prevented this were strongly resented.