"NO ROOM FOR SCROUNGERS"

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21970, 19 December 1936, Page 21

"NO ROOM FOR SCROUNGERS"

—«— PUBLIC WORKS CAMPS victimisation denied i;y minister "There is no room for scroungers, criminals or loafers in the Public ■Works Department, and we are not going to have the riff-raff of the country drifting into it. We want to keep the Public Works an institution, where decent men can earn their living by hard work without fear of having their good name spoiled by association with any undesirables." In these terms the Minister for public Works (the Hon. R. Semple) commented in an address to the construction gangs at the Ashley river protection works yesterday on rumours that he had victimised certain employees of the department. Mr Semple said he had never victimised anybody, but he admitted he had sacked men who had no right to associate with decent, clean-living workmen. There was no reason why the man who wore dungarees should not be a gentleman and be treated as a gentleman, for he was engaged in most essential work which was fundamentally necessary in increasing the productive capacity of the Dominion. "We are at the moment the custodians of the public purse," Mr Semple added, "and we are going on the course we have planned without any turning back. We shall do this in spite of the criticism of the street-corner spittoon philosopher and the snivelling scrounger, or the orotests of that over-developed parasite the stock exchange gambler. No man has any claim on the nation's production unless he pulls his weight and renders some service as ea individual unit."