NO UNDESIRABLES!

Evening Star, Issue 22526, 19 December 1936, Page 9

NO UNDESIRABLES!

PURGING THE PUBLIC WORKS ANOTHER SEMPLE EDICT [Per United Press Association.}CHRISTCHURCH, December 18. “ There is no room for scroungers, criminals, or loafers in the Public Works Department, and we are not going to have the riff-raff of the country drifting into it. Wo want to keep the Public Works an where decent men can earn their living by hard work without fear of having their good names spoiled by association with any undesirables.” In these terms the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. RSemple) commented in an address to construction gangs at the Asldey River protection works to-day on rumours that he had victimised certain employees of the department. Mr Semple said he had never victimised anybody, but he admitted that he had sacked men who had no right to associate witli decent, clean-living workmen. There was no reason why a man who wore dungarees should not be a gentleman and be treated as a gentleman, for he was engaged in a most essential work which was fundamentally necessary in increasing the productive capacity of the Dominion. “ Wo are at the moment the custodians of the public purse,” Mr Semple added, “ and wo are going on the course we have planned without any turning back. We shall do this in spite of the criticism of tho streetcorner spittoon philosopher and the snivelling scrounger, or the protests of that over-developed parasite, the Stock Exchange gambler. No man has anv claim on the nation’s production unless ho pulls his weight and renders some service as an individual unit,”