PILFERING ON THE WHARVES.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 216, 10 September 1921, Page 14

PILFERING ON THE WHARVES.

(I'o the I'.ditor.i Sir.—Mr. Cowie'e recent letter on this evil and his suggested remedy that all wharf employees submit to search on leaving work has my approval, and I have personally no objection to its enactment- Such precaution is obviously in the best interests of all honest workers who have to suffer the moral obloquy of the actions of a minority. Smuggling is certainly rampant, and on the increase of late years. These unsocial acts are due to "tho few, who, careless of the common good, engage in their nefarious pursuits, heedless of the slur cast upon their fellows, and oblivious to the fact that Mich action has the great tendency of increasing the present unduly hijili cost of living, saddling industry and commerce and combined with the prevailing dislocation of international markets, reduces the investment of capital nn.l the employment of labour. The inefficiency shown also by the revolutionary extremists has had its effect in this regard, but happily this is being reme-died-surplus labour and honest workers are replacing them, soditinni=ts are at a discount, and a reversion to moderate sane unionism is on the agenda. Peace, plenty and prosperity will return to our fair Dominion with employment for all toilers who are willing to <,nve a reciprocal return for a remunerative wage. The innocent community has to pay the piper in the end, and an industrial stocktaking have to bo adopted and smuggling and go-slow must l>o removed.

When returning from the front, after nearly three and ahalf years' service as a volunteer, 1 was disgusted to find the large number of disloyalists on the wharf, who had taken the places of patriotic workers; hut this is now beinj; attended to, to the community's good, and, as one of your correspondents said, our disrupters may now Ilit to the green pastures of Bolshevism, where their activities may be more in demand, though, if information is to be credited, at not quite the same rate of remuneration. To conclude, Mr. Cowie's recommendation is good, but in my opinion is capable of extension to all industrial and national functions, Government and and wherever commodities and valuables are in circulation, for the continual and increasing crop of prosecutions of late years shows that his precaution should apply widely, for the trouble is national and not sectional only to wharf employment.—l am, etc.. LOYALIST WATEKSIDER NO. 2.