No Soup Cadgers To-day, Says Minister

Grey River Argus, 7 November 1949, Page 5

No Soup Cadgers To-day, Says Minister

AUCKLAND, November 6. “I’m 76”, 4he Minister of Works (the Hon. R. Semple) confessed when supporting the Labour candidature of Mr T. E. Skinner at Camp Bunn, in the Tamaki electorate, “but I’m still buzzing in every cylinder and sparking on every plug. They say, ‘Semple’s too old and we’ll soon be rid of him’. I’ll let them know that Semple is not only alive from the chin up, but from the heels up”. Mr Semple referred to the soupkitchen and wheelbarrow days of the depression. “Contemptuous falsehoods and foul exaggerations”, was the Minister’s retort when an interjector flourished a newspaper clipping and said there were soup kitchens in New Zealand to-day. “If someone has to depend on cadging soup to-day, then he’s a loafer. If he’s a man, I’ll give him a job at £1 a day and pay his fare to Roxburgh. I want nine hundred men there to-morrow”, said Mr Semple.