A CONTRAST.

Grey River Argus, 26 July 1922, Page 4

A CONTRAST.

Despite questioning, the Government retuse to say what they me spendingon immigration—whether il is half a million or a full million per annum—but it was admitted in rhe loan prospectuses of 1920 and 1921 that approximately three millions out of each loan of £5,00(J,0U0 was to be applied io the payment of contracts for railway rolling stock and materials, for plant for further electrical installation and for material for other public works. These “materials” included coal and material from abroad, for which in 1920 £1,400,000 was paid, and in 1921 £l.500,000 or £1,600,000. In other words, while our own locomotive and railway stock makers and our coal miners were on short time, three millions out ot each loan raised in London never left the Old Country! We have big farmers and welfare leaguers lamenting that in the Post and Telegraph Department, the permanent staff increased in numbers from 5962 to 7763 between the financial year of 1914-15 and that of 1920-21. Too many workers altogether! How much “cheaper production” there would be if the 1800 new employees were left to fish for a crust at tho doors of the private capitalists, and take whatever wages these humanitarians care to offer. The Government gave a man in the Olii Country (Sir Duncan Elliott) a little commission of £34,245 over the imported locomotives, but for this country it would could out the thousands. We hear a welfare merchant like Mr C. P. Skerrett complaining that the bill for pensions has gone up too greatly! If th-c population of this country is not getting smaller, it stands to reason tho State departments will have to increase their staffs. When the capitalist politician says we want economy he means one thing and one thing only wage cuts. Where are the surpluses from our balances of trade going to? The Government declare they all go through the window. The workers of New Zealand, whom Cabinet Ministers accused of not giving enough sweat and toil for their wages, have in the last ten years vastly increased their production. The State statistics prove it. The Government boast .about the country’s production, but turn round and blame the workers for not producing more. Yet while tho cost of living has risen in the last decade by 85 per cent., wages have only gone up 58| per cent., so that, without going any lower, the general standard of living has vastly deteriorated in that period. By all means let the State spend a few hundred pounds upon setting up each immigrant on the land, but let no Government promise this and then dishonour its promise, and leave the newcomers the choice cither of returning home, or undercutting wages here. It is only the bulldozing, ignorance, or apathy of a certain proportion of the masses that permits this scandalous mis-government to go on so long in New Zealand. At the present lime the capitalist organs and politicians are striving with might and main to fool the people once more. Tho sectarian devil has again been harnessed to the chariot of the Tories, and publishes the most rascally class of seditious propaganda with tho secret connivance of the maladministrators who stoop so low to mislead the country. Compare this with the treatment meted out to whoever upholds Labour’s case. The socalled “law” as to sedition is a weapon used by the ruling element merely to ride-rough-shod over the working class. If it evoke no striking protest before this year is out, then the Government may conclude their end has justified the means they choose to obtain it, and the people will deserve tho consequences of rule under tho iron heel for years to come.