The Forty-hour Week

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 254, 23 July 1936, Page 11

The Forty-hour Week

Sir.—Your correspondent “Gilbert and Sullivan” must not be allowed to get away with such a shockingly untrue inference as contained in his letter of today. Will he state why there is a dearth of tradesmen to-day? Does he know what will happen if the jroutb of New Zealand are denied the right to learn the various trades as has been the case over the past few years? Anybody with any intelligence at all could see four years ago that, under the old Government policy, no tradesmen w uld be available in or about 1936. Fancy talking such nonsense as being driven overseas for goods, when the youth of the Dominion are just crying for th- chance to learn to make these very things! There is not the slightest doubt that the forty-hour week will help to absorb the unemployed and put this country on its feet again. No skilled labour, and the youth of our country wasting away! What a wonderful state of affairs!_ I wish somebody could be made responsible for this inhuman treatment, whidh is nothing short of industrial murder. Does “Gilbert and Sullivan” support the old system or has he a better scheme to offer?—l am, etc., _ ANTI-NONSENSE. Wanganui. July 21.