"AWAY FROM WORK"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 10, 13 January 1941, Page 6

"AWAY FROM WORK"

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—ln Friday's "Post" a correspondent, "Clothing Machinist," writes: "Now that the worker is calling the tune and having a fair time for recreation, the employers are kicking and crying disloyalty. I say no, only getting a little of their own back." "Clothing Machinist" appears to ignore i the fact that this is a total war and New Zealand's must be a total effort, if we are to take our share of the Empire's fight for freedom. Over this country "no enemy planes in savage flight bomb and blast and kill," but " 'neath London's wrecked and shattered domes they die at the dawn of day." In England, which is our front line of defence, cthey are not grumbling about long hours or conditions or "thinking of getting a little of their own back" with the enemy at the gate. There is no respite for anybody in .England. Herded underground they; snatch sleep whenever they can. Tired they walk to work—from shelters, often with the roar of aerial battle in their ears and bombs battering the streets. How different in New Zealand. Untouched by the scars of war, life goes on normally, sports and holidays are uninterrupted. Notwithstanding our kinsmen's terrible suffering, the slaughter of civilians, men, women, and children, and hospitals razed to the ground, it is unbelievable to read that after the appeals made by Cabinet Ministers for increased production any true New Zealander would advocate "getting a little of his or her own back" at a critical time like the present. | I wonder if "Clothing Machinist" has any idea of what happened to unionism and the workers in Germany when Hitler came into power?—l am, etc., T. A. FRASER.