MILLERTON NOTES

Grey River Argus, 18 February 1932, Page 7

MILLERTON NOTES

(Our Own Correspondent.; On Sunday morning the annual meeting of the Library Committee took place for the election of officers. Messrs Russel (Sec.), Simonson (President), and Burchfield (Treas.), were all reelected. For the Committee, Messrs Riddle, Harden, Edwards, Lee, Davison, Gibson; Auditors, Messrs Stanley and Strange. Owing to the slack time in the mine, tho Library has not been able to maintain a full time caretaker. The Committee having carried on for some time previously, this question created a fair amount of discussion in view of the financial situation. Finally it was decided to call for nominations at the meeting for a caretaker at a wage of £2 weekly, to be further reviewed in three months’ time. Mr R. Pyle, an old resident of Millerton, who was among the recent dismissals, was elected to the position. The question of the unemployed having access to and the use of the Library caused a heated discussion. It was maintained that some outside members were refusing to pay their 2/- quarterly subscriptions. In the writer’s opinion, the totally unemployed are now going to be penalised in so far as they are going to be asked to pay 50 per cent of the amount paid by those still working in the mine. The majority of the totally unemployed will only wish to use the reading room as I am quite sure they won’t have any money loft for billiards, etc., out of their starvation pittances. So to try and force them to pay as little as oven 1/- per quarter is to rob them of some other necessity. No local authority, however, reactionary, has yet tried to force the unemployed to pay for admission to tho reading rooms. It constitutes a slur on the hitherto good name of Millerton in this regard, for the rights of the workers. In tho bowling competition, the draw for the semi-final club pairs competition is:— Hugh and Peggie versus Murray and McGregor; Walkingshaw and Innes versus Riddle and Shaw or Clark and Shaw. Pennant Games, February 14th; Nicholls, Flannigan, Boswell, McCullock (s) and Swan, J. F. Smith, Chippendale, Adam (s), play Seddonville at Sergeant’s Hill. Two rinks to play Westport A. at Millerton on February 21st, viz., Harker, McGregor, Stanley, Riddle (s); J. Orman, ,T. Burt, T. Calder, D. Murray (s). On Friday evening, February 19th. tho local Unemployment Organisation will run a social and dance in PegI gio’s Hall. Prices are ladies 1/- and 1 gents 2/-. Supper will be provided. The winning tickets of the Xmas Present Art Union were drawn by tho Mayor of Whangarei on February 6th. Results: Ist prize £5O. No. 38593, “The Unlucky Kid,” C/o Post Office Hotel, Havelock; 2nd prize, £2O, No. 56,502, “Trio,” 15 Romilly Street, West port; 3rd prize, £lO, No. 24,650, Mrs Hodgens, Rawene; 4th prize, £5, No. 56,796, Hospital Comforts Club, Whangarei; sth prize, £5, No. 51,559, D. Smith, 110 Lambton Quay, Wellington; 6th prize. £5, No. 9018, L.M.L., Whangarei; 7th prize, £2/10/-, No. 31,862. N. Dahl, C/o. Paris Vulcanising Works, Whangarei; Sth prize, £2/10/-, No. 39,974, Kate Rowe Waro, Hikurangi. The gold watch donated to the seller of the first prize ticket, was won by Mr Chas. E. Pryce, Levels, Canterbury. Tho Maori Methodist Mission paid their annual visit to Millerton on Friday last. There was a" good attendance to see their performance, which was well appreciated. Tho main idea of their performances is to show, in n musical setting, the history of the. Maoris from the primitive conditions up to the present time.

The prosecution that took place recently in Wellington on the criticism of the Government’s unemployed policy and the camps for single men gave cause for hard thinking. One is apt to ask what will be the policy of the Government in the future when the situation is more intense, as i*. is bound to become. It is up to all working class organisations to consider the challenge that is contained in the prosecution. It constituted a grave violation of the workers’ most elementaly right. —a right which, if denied, will place the workers of New Zealand’on a level with the most oppressed workers in any part of the world. How far was Karl Marx wrong in his estimation of tho rulers under capitalism when he wrote the following: “As the crisis deepens, the rule of the capitalists is turned into the terrorism of tho capitalists. The civilisation and the justice of the capitalist order emerge m their true and awful light, when tho slaves of tho order rise against their masters. Then this civilisation and its justice becomes absolutely naked barbarity, and “unlawful vengeance”.— (Karl Marx). Already we are having the signs of the terrorism all over the world. Even in Britain there has been, witnessed scenes that have not been equalled since the Chartist Movement, nearly one hundred years ago. Take the following quotation: “A worker named Huggett was arrested after a demonstration in Museum Square. Af- i ter three years in the Army he was discharged with a disability pension his right arm having been withered and useless. After being batoned by the police, receiving a severe head wound and bruised body, he was charged with assault. The Magistrates remanded him for a few days in order that he may receive treatment at a prison hospital. When he came back he was fined guilty of “assault” and fined £2. “A worker named Cyril Kent was carried off Parliament Square unconscious. He had been charged down by mounted police and batoned into insensibility. He is only a small lad and yet he was charged with assaulting hefty policemen. He was found guilty and is now serving six weeks imprisonment at Wormwood Scrubbs. ” —(Taken from the official record of the International Labour Defence.) The

above ate just examples of what took place in l Britain during the agitations against the cuts in the unemployed rates of pay. What will happen when the unemployed are faced with a further increase In the eost of living owing to the tariffs?