LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 302, 21 December 1935, Page 23

LABOUR NOTES.

UNION ACTIVITIES. (By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.) THE SEASON'S GREETINGS. Christmas, with all its joys and sorrows, too, to some, is once again right on us, and before I shall have another opportunity in this column of enlisting the attention .of my readers, the day that is to most of us symbolical ot "Peace cn earth and good will toward men" will have been gathered into the past and a new and portentous year will have been opened out before us. It is perhaps fitting therefore that 1 should express my best wishes to my many readers for a Bright and a Happy Christmas. For four or five years as the festive season of Christmas c*me round there were thousands upon thousands of my fellow citizens who found themselves faced with uncertainty, not to say despair, at the circumstances in which they found themselves. From the time of the first angel-heralded birth nearly two thousand years ago, this Christmas season of ours has .been marked by rejoicing and festivities, a time when even the poorest among us liked to mark the occasion by the giving and receiving of best wishes one to another. Yet how many times have we wished each other "A Merry Christmas when, in our own hearts, I am afraid : there was far from that "merry" feeling that we gave utterance to. Yet. we came through it with grim determination and—like Britons—we "stucl< it," as the soldiers say. I am bound tc sa'y that this Christmas appears to us to be on a much brighter plane than those of the past few years. Everyone unless it is the confirmed grumbler, is spending the season in a brighter and more hopeful spirit, even though it be a spirit of anticipation. Prior to the election, everybody was prepared for a change of some sort and that change has come" with dramatic suddenness. There is a new captain at the helm of the Ship of State and his words have had r cheering and heartening effect not onlj on his own followers, but also on verj many of those who formerly figured as his opponents. All are anxious to give him and his crew the best of wishes now that he lias put the ship about or the other tack, and there is a feelinj of hope and expectation abroad at this Christmastide that has been absent foi some years past. Merchants report bif orders ahead. Unemployed and relie! workers are receiving something extu to enable them to spend the fortnigli with a little less worry and a little more comfort as befits this annual occa sion, and ali round there is a feeling o cheerfulness. One little shopkeeper n the heart of Grey Lynn told me that oi the Friday night after polling (lay sin had taken the biggest receipts over tin counter that she had had on a late nigh for years past. No increased pay hae been made up to that time, and he opinion was that the workers had beei releasing the little nest eggs that the} , lia d been holding back for a las , resource. There are brighter prospect ■ ahead. To my readers I commend thi words of the' Prime Minister at thi l civic reception this week: "I want you. . co-operation and support and I will no , let vou down." Whatever our particular >lar colour of politics is, let us all unit r at this season in expressing the wish to "Peace on earth, good will toward raen. u

CABINET HARD AT WORK. We are to have somewhat of a novelty this coining year with an ordinary session of Parliament meeting in February, and legislation drafted and printed ready to go on with in the first week of the session if required. The Ministers have dispersed each to their own Departments eager to gain a working knowledge of each section, and are putting in train policies and preparing for a redemption of the most pressing of their election pledges. These new Ministers are nothing if not practical, and one of the most practical of them is the new Minister of Public Works, Mr. Semple. In his impetuous and breezy style he has been expressing his opinion of the Railway Board and one or two other auxiliaries of the late Coalition Government for deserting the East Const railway materials, but he is full of vigour and determination. He never asks a man to go where he would not go himself. For instance, while on the East Coast this week he came to a bore 70 feet dee]), the spoil from which was hoisted to the surface in a bucket on the end of a rope from a windlass. "Bob," the erstwhile miner, put one foot in the bucket and hanging on to the rope, was lowered the 70 feet so that he could see for himself the class of country that the bore was piercing. He came up the 70 feet ladder to the surface unaided. It was most unconventional conduct.

"reaching the public ear. Several people have asked me for information on the announcement of the Prime Minister that it was intended to bring the microphone into the House of Parliament so that the general public can get first-hand reports of debates in Parliament, "straight from the horse's mouth" so to speak. But so far only the bare assertion has been made, and some worthy persons are very much perturbed in spirit at the appalling prospect to them. They may be well satisfied at receiving reports of the proceedings from the selective columns of their own paper, or, they may go one better and have a regular supply of Hansards sent them—by the way a report in Hansard is always three weeks later than the debate itself for all the proof sheets have to be corrected by the speakers before they are made up in booklet form and posted to each recipient. Labour has no daily Press of its own. That has been a n-reat handicap in past years, but in future it is going to get its political news straight and hot out of the Parliamentary oven. It might upset some people, but the plan is well worth tryino- Owners of wireless sets are not compelled to listen-in, for a turn of the button will bring them within reach of "Slidin' Down a Rainbow," Schubert s "Unfinished Symphony" or the delights of listening to a wrestling match.