AN OLD SLANDER REPEATED.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1309, 12 December 1911, Page 5

AN OLD SLANDER REPEATED.

MR, MASSEY AND THE WOHKERS. \u n Vμ 0 , 0 ? 1 " 60 of liis address last night, Mi. Hotelier read bite out of an old ansard with tho object of pemmdiiiff the audience that Mr. Massev wanted to reduco wapw to ,Is. Gd. a day. wiiifi ii i' s r i» ob,tf o!> was received with both applause and diswut. . One auditor remarked: "You aro quo!Hanaird years ago, ore you

Mr. 1 etcher: "II: doesn't matter. The same old party is there now." Wo want X) « day now," interjected a man fitting in front. i'U° • v , 0 , 1 . 1 ,ncan for tao labourer?" asked Mr. Fletcher. .J, 08, '! "Plied the interjector. f y i'i r r lcnd . hcre Ba >' B - C 1 a da y." romarked Mr. Fletcher, "and if the fabourer S"/" a day why not?" (loud applause.) no went on to arguo that the auourer had os much right to Book- the best possible return for his labour as had the capitalist to do tho tatno thing in respect of his capital. [Tho reference is to a speech of Mr. .Massey s in the Financial Debate in ISM. Ho quoted a paragraph from an Auckland paper in which it was reported that a number of unemployed had been brought up from tho south by the Gov. eminent and put to work at Cs. a day, which was later raised to 7s. per day, while twice os many local labourers were working for ss. o day. It was of thin fiwampiiijT of the local men that Mr. Maseey complained. "Now the question that arises," ho said, "is this: Are there any unemployed in Auckland? Are there no northern teltlcrs who require work? If there were no unemployed in Auckland I should havo nothing to say, but I. know, as a matter, of fact that, in consequence of this sort of thing, a number of northern settlers have had to go on to Iho giimfields for the winter." The feoling in Auckland at the timo was strongly against the Government's action in bringing men from tho south'while there was such a surplus of local labour that the ordinary wages a man could get was ss. a day. fin his Winton speech last month, ae a Press Association message- stated. Mr* Massev, in reply to a question, eaid emphatically that 9s. a day was little enough for any married man.]