WORK ON THE WATERFRONT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 130, 3 June 1937, Page 8

WORK ON THE WATERFRONT

(To the Editor.) *

—I feel sure all true unionists and supporters of the Labour Government will rejoice at the very honest and straightforward remarks recently passed by the Hon. Peter Fraser, Acting Prime Minister. I have been on the waterfront as a worker for the last twenty years, and I can endorse all of his remarks'. The trouble really does not confine itself to any one.port, be? causa the evidence of our own mates en the vessels trading on the' coast, given to us from time tt> time in conversations goes to prove' that this : last, few years a lot of the younger generation who have come on to the waterfront have a very uncertain standard of honesty. It is a pity.because during this last year we have received increases of pay .that have made for better living. .:■■'. In common with many others I have felt that our leaders have been inclined to take too easy a view of; what they must have known, rather contenting themselves to organising new unions and making speeches instead of educating the men to realise what they .and the union required of them —"To help the Government to make a success by pulling their weight and earning the wages they were paid." The go-slow policy does not injure the shipping companies or harbour boards so much as it does the'general public, and naturally the general1 public will show their resentment at'election time. Then all the work and money that has been spent to establish a Labour Government will be thrown into the melting pot as':a result of the actions of a lazy few. Let us unite to cut out this dry rot from our organisations and play the game by the Labour Government, as they are playing the'game by us. They are giving of their best for the wages we iare paying them. Let us help them by doing the same. It isn't much to.ask.—l am, etc., ' i ■ ' WATERSIDER.