SUSTENANCE ABUSED?

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21827, 6 July 1936, Page 8

SUSTENANCE ABUSED?

INVESTIGATION BY MINISTER OBJECTION TO STOP-WORK MEETINGS MR SEMPLE DENIES ANY VICTIMISATION (THE PRESS Spec!*! Service.) AUCKLAND, July 5. “I want to emphasise that the Government has no intention of paying sustenance to men who have left their jobs in order to receive relief,” said the Minister for Public Works, the Hon. R. Semple, to-day. “When the Government increased sustenance it did so in order to lift the standard of living for the bona fide unemployed until they could find work, but it was never thought that there would have been those whom I would describe as ‘scroungers on the nation’,” Mr Semple said. The Government would find an antidote for the situation.

The Minister for Labour, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, was to make investigations to ascertain to what extent the sustenance system was being abused. If a man was offered a job that provided decent conditions and he would not take it, he would get nothing from the Government. Such a man was an impostor, who deserved no sympathy. Speaking of labour on public works, the Minister said there*,were now no signs of trouble since the affair at Motueka had been settled.

“There has been a good deal of anonymous correspondence in Wellington and elsewhere criticising me for interfering with the freedom of the men at Motueka,” said Mr Semple. “That is as ridiculous as the allegations of victimisation or of allowing my engineers to victimise the employees of the department. Such statements are deliberate falsehoods. What I did take exception to was the men on the Motueka aerodrome holding stop-work meetings on the'job for no cause whatever.

“For instance, two days before I arrived in Motueka 'the men held two stop-work meetings—one lasting two hours and the other, I understand. lasting longer—for no cause at all, as their-pay tickets indicated that they had no grievance. “The 40-hour week gives the men the whole of Saturday to hold meetings and they can talk the whole day long if they want to, and so far as I am concerned they can do so and discuss any subject they like. They can occupy their time on Sunday doing the same and every night of the week after work. As a matter of fact. I am establishing libraries on the big public works and have given healthy literature to these libraries so that the man can furnish their minds with something worthwhile to talk about. “So far as victimisation is concerned this is a wilful falsehood. There has been no victimisation. The type of man who goes on to public works and refuses to play the game, who refuses to pull his weight, who refuses to acknowledge any form of discipline, ignores his agreement, treats the engineer on the job with contempt, and then, if he is discharged, yells ‘victimisation.’ I am not losing any sleep over that class of man. I would not be fit to occupy the position of Minister for Public Works if I allowed that type of man to dissipate the public works camps and to cause needless trouble on the job without the slightest reason.”