Their minds were untrammelled, free, and receptive, and, combined with their progressive spirit, there was a steadying common sense which prevented them from going too far. Supported by these Ministers, he met the House in 1893 with a confidence he certainly did not feel a few months earlier, when he made up his mind to form the Seddon Administration.
The Speech he prepared for Lord Glasgow was worded in the same cautious and moderate tones as dominated his Napier address. By means of the Speech, he congratulated the colony on the undoubted turn of the tide. He was on safe ground there, as “The Exodus” had completely stopped. So far from having any anxiety on that score, his troubles began to run in the opposite direction. It was now Australia’s turn to lose many colonists. There was a dreadful state of affairs there, especially in the “Marvellous Melbourne” which, a few years previously, had been the subject of Mr. George Augustus Sala’s admiration and praise. Nearly all the Australian colonies had drifted into a state of most unhappy distress. New Zealand was looked to as a country that had plenty of work and plenty of money to pay away for public works. The colony got back not only its own people, who had left it in the time of need, but also destitute Australians in search of employment. Mr. Seddon, therefore, had to meet the danger of the country being swamped by those unfortunate people.
The Labour Bureau had been in existence for two years under Mr. Keeves’s charge, and it, working in conjunction with the co-operative system, had been able to send many men to places where work was awaiting them. The fame of the bureau soon spread to Australia, where it offered another attraction to those who could find no work in that country.
In these circumstances, Mr. Seddon had to take steps to warn destitute persons from resorting for employment to New Zealand, as he argued that those who had remained with the colony in its trying time must receive first consideration in the labour market, whose power of expanding was still restricted by the fluctuations in prices for products. The country that was at its wits’ ends a few years previously to retain its population was now devising measures to keep off those who wanted to flock to it.
