"LEAVES US COLD."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 224, 22 September 1938, Page 15

"LEAVES US COLD."

VERBAL CONTORTIONS. MR. SEMPLE CRITICISED. STATEMENT BV WORKERS. (By TYlepraph.—Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHI7RCH, Wednesday. "The physical gymnastics and verbal contortions of Mr. Semple leave us cold,'' declares a statement issued by rotational workers on the Governor's Bay job, which announces their intention to return to work if certain conditions are observed by the Public Works Department.

It was stated that, by a majority vote, the men had agreed to resume work conditional upon the Department giving a definite undertaking that the previous offer of concessions and guarantee to limit the scope of contract work to those fit to undertake it would be permanently observed.

The men had not been influenced in this decision by the statement made by the Minister of Public Works, the Hon. R. Semple. The whole question of wages and conditions on rotational work had been the subject of investigation by the Federation of Labour, it was claimed.

"After all the years Mr. Semple has been acquainted with the average workers and they with him, the difficulties of recognising a 'scrounger' have long been overcome,'' the statement declared. "We recommend Mr. Semple to endeavour to make his statements consistent with those of the officers of his Department and of the Minister of Labour, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong."

The men affected had been very patient, it was claimed. They used every constitutional channel to clear up the dispute, but received no sympathy from either Mr. Semple or his Department. The men were declined an interview with him, and the Minister made his statement attacking the men, saying as justification that the word of the District Public Works Engineer, Mr. E. Langbein, against the men was good enough for him.

Some of the men, the statement concluded, were quite capable of making wages at contract rates, while others, due to their past occupations, were not; yet the former did not hesitate to make common cause. Was this the action of "scroungers" I