UP AGAINST IT!

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 52, 2 March 1921, Page 7

UP AGAINST IT!

10 T« »ITOB. Sir, —Most) ©£ the day you will see mem sitting idly on the stringers near the Ferry Wharf. They »ro watersidera out of work, and yet there is still plenty of work to do. Out in the K»iw»rra Bight you will see twelve great steamers eating their heads off in demurrage, at, say, £5500 a day—a low figure—and yet there is more ocrgo offering ihau they can carry! _ The loss of work will fall direotly and indireotly on the watersider; while the loss on these, ships falls on the owners ? No, Sir, indirectly everyone will share in tha» los 3, There is no time for academic discussion* nor for hysteria, but for looking things full in the face for what they are. Without spending time and apace on. details, I will aay this: New Zealand is up against it. The wool-grower is up against it, the meat raiser is up against it, the flaxmiller ia up against it, and the dairy fanner—well, he is looking anxiously as to what may happen after 31st March. Wool and meat aud all connected with them represented * total export last year, of £29,190,095: One could say £30.000,000 out of total exports of £45,592,294 far New Zealand produce. Where are the markets for wool, meat, tallow, hides, nelts, today? Where is the market for flax (a big employer of labour in the Wellington district)? Their values are well elewn, and their producers fully realise it. What will be th 3 consequences if there are groat falls in prices? The answer is obvious. Nothing like £30,000.000 will be received for wool and meat thiA year unless a miracle happens. Therefore, my advice to all workers, bo they watetside'rs or ribbon-sellers, waitresses or ledger-keepers, carpenters or rronmouldors, if you've got a job, hold it down, and hold it down with both hand? and hard, for the war time.jazz of big profits, high wages, groat turnovers, lovely prices, is over. It will not matter how much -cheaper things may bccoine, to any man or woman, if they are not earning money or enough to buy them! Get this jdoa olearly into your head that New Zealand lives on what it sends away to other markets;, that the bulk, of this, is. meat and wool, which are well down in price; [ that markets are being missed, and the Bow of money into the country is stopped by disputes—no matter who js to blame— get thaso i«leas firmly fixed in mind, and then hold down your jobs and nail them down if you can. —I am, etc,, l*t Mwh. ■ >.. <J ' -