TWENTY-ONE YEARS

Grey River Argus, 13 December 1940, Page 12

TWENTY-ONE YEARS

A Labour Daily “ARGUS” CELEBRATION For the past twenty-one years the “Grey River Argus” has been expounding the cause of Labour. Whether men or women worked in the mines, mills, fields, factories, workshops or offices, the “Argus” has fought their fight. Its columh s have advocated the best maternity service, free to all mothers; better and more efficient schools that would take the boys and girls to the universities; free hospitals and medical’ services; and wages rates for all workers that would raise the standard of living in New Zealand to the highest in the world. Fighting man-made slumps and unemployment, it has helped to give workers access to the resources of a prolific country. It has taken up the cause of the aged, so that after a lifetime of useful work they shall not want the necessities of life; the widow, so that the loss of a breadwinner would not condemn ner and her children to poverty; the sick, so that the loss of earning power would not leave them depending on charity 7 until health returned; and the abandoned family, the workless, and those who can no longer bear the heat and burden of the day have also had tneir cause espoused. The twenty-one years that the “Argus” has been a Labour daily newspaper has been a period of glorious achievement. It ha s fought the workers’ cause through strikes and lock-outs, and has put forth a political programme second to none. During the last twenty-one years it has ( never refused a fight with harsh employers or political reactionaries, whether they called themselves Reformers, Uniteds, or Nationalists, and no matter how carefully the intention of the Tories was hidden in a wealth of words and promises, their opposition to what is good for mankind has been mad e known to the public. The early 7 period of our Labour daily paper has passed—and now for the next term. On Saturday, December 21, at the Lyceum Hall, Greymouth, the workers of the West Coast will celebrate the 21st anniversary of their paper. They will review the past and prepare for the future; and on the foundation of what ha s already been accomplished will organise for the next twentvone years, for an even better ’ and brighter civilisation than can yet be visualised by the man in the street