COMMUNIST TACTICS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 133, 2 December 1936, Page 12

COMMUNIST TACTICS

MR. SEMPLE'S ATTITUDE

"These men point to Russia as an ideal State, and I appreciate all that has been done by Russians to emancipate themselves, but I can tell you that if Russians carried on the same obstruction tactics as these men, they would lose not only their jobs but their lives," said the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple), when referring in addresses delivered to men on the South Island main trunk railway on Monday to trouble he had experienced with the Communist element (states a Kailcoura correspondent). No doubt the men knew that he had had trouble since the Government initiated its programme, ha said. He expected that the disturbance did not come from the majority of the men on the public works, however, but from some supporters of the Communist movement who had done everything humanly possible to prevent the Labour Party from getting into power and afterwards had turned their attention to causing trouble wherever they could, particularly on public works. "I am determined that employment on public works will be confined to men anxious and willing to give service in return fo_ the decent wage standard which I have made provision for," said the Minister. "I will not be blocked, embarrassed, or sidestepped by the Communist element, who have proved themselves wreckers and not builders." After referring to what would happen to such men in Russia, the Minister said that the New Zealand Government did not pursue a policy of that kind, but it was determined that the men in the service of the nation should be decent and anxious to earn a decent living. There was no place for impostors or wreckers on the public works of New Zealand, and he was glad to say that the works now were pretty free of them, thanks to the attitude he had taken in standing no nonsense.