MR FRASER IN AUCKLAND

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24870, 9 May 1946, Page 4

MR FRASER IN AUCKLAND

ADDRESSES TO FACTORY WORKERS

APPEAL TO LABOUR SUPPORTERS

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, May 8. Statements of the urgent need for more production and a warning that if workers slacked, or if the distributive and transport services failed to run smoothly, the position of the Government might be jeopardised marked various addresses given to meetings of workers in Auckland factories by the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser) to-day. On every occasion the Prime Minister said that the Labour Government could be beaten in the industrial as well as the political field, and he urged workers to in“ crease production, and to support the Government at the coming General Election. During the day the Prime Minister addressed gatherings of workers at sixfactories, as well as attending a meeting of waterside workers. In every case he was given a most attentive hearing, punctuated by applause. Votes of confidence in himself as leader of the Labour Party, and in the Government, and pledges to support the Government at the election were passed without dissent wherever they were put to meetings. In addition to representatives of the Auckland Labour Representation Committee, the Prime Minister was accompanied by his Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Mr A. G. Osborne, Mr F. Hackett, M.P., and Mr P. Carr, M.P.

The largest meeting addressed was one of about 1500 men and women at the Westfield freezing works. There was also a large gathering at the New Zealand Glass Manufacturers Company, Ltd. "It is on the goods and services which you produce that the prosperity ot New Zealand Is based,” said' Mr Fraser. “Unless goods are produced without interruption you can have all the money beyond the dreams of avarice, and yet the country will be poor. Under our legislation we can give you the best possible conditions, the highest wages, and social security can be maintained, but unless goods are produced the whole structure will crumble.

Stoppages of Work “If there are stoppages of work, either big or trivial, that ought not to take place in a country where you have a sympathetic Government, all our schemes will fail. We will be pointed to as the country which had a Labour Government for 10 years and then failed. We cannot achieve success unless we produce continuously, and transport and distribute goods efficiently. We can be defeated by ourselves if we do not work honestly and unremittingly under decent wages and conditions. We must not have a Labour regime, which is your party, defeated by inefficiency in production ' and unnecessary troubles. The Government can pass laws, but unless the people work in co-operation and produce goods for the public to buy, that same Government is helpless. As production increases so those who do the work will get a bigger share. That is the policy of the Government.

Another way in which Labour can be defeated is in the political field," said Mr Fraser, in appealing for the greatest efforts from Labour supporters up to the night of the election. “Our opponents are organising as never before, and you have got to take a stand against these efforts. Money is pouring into the coffers of the National Party, and they are not doing this just for fun. Just as the workers received a dividend from the Labour Party, so will National Party supporters claim their dividend if a new Government, with different ideas, were to be elected. Do not forget that the bad conditions of the past are just around the comer, and there is a danger that they would return.”