UNEMPLOYED AT HANMER.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19343, 22 June 1928, Page 11

UNEMPLOYED AT HANMER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir, —I wish to -reply to "Plant Now'' after reading his letter in your jsiue of the 20th inst., where he says he read with disgust that out of seven men sent up to Hanmer six returned to the City. Does he enquire why they left? Did they get a chance to prove their working abilities? Does "Plant Now" expect a young horse just broken in to do the same work as one which has been in steady work? "Plant Now" wants to get on this "cushy job" he speaks of, and if someone in charge stirred him up as he does' others "Plant Now" would not have enough wind left to howl with in his haste to get back to the City. It is amusing when "Plant Now" says that a storekeeper never refuses credit to a willing worker. Well, these men must be willing workers if tl.ey get credit. Furthermore, are not the storekeepers fairly secure if they give credit? In case "Plant Now" may not know, if men do manage to hang on, before they receive their pay the storekeeper's money is taken out by the Forestry Department, thereby saving the storekeeper, butcher, and baker the trouble of collecting.

In regard to wet weather, at the rate of pay they receive how else can they be but in debt, with two days' work a week? It will hardly keep them put of

debt if given fine weather. Good, honest workers seldom get a chance to prove themselves before they are bounced. I have given it a go, but willing and all as I was, if things were not just it when the man in charge came along it was, "Doon the road ye go." Howling is justified until the Forestry Department makes a change in its method—Yours etc. ONE WHO TRIED. June 21st, 1928.