HARD WORK NEEDED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 23 January 1925, Page 4

HARD WORK NEEDED.

RACE OF WORLD INDUSTRY. BRITAIN FALLING BEHIND. The industrial outlook in Britain is blacker to-day than it was a year ago; but throughout the world times are critical, and it behoves everyone to be exceedingly careful and not waste money. Britain is losing ground, and the only means by which she can hope to win it back is steady, honest work on the part of the whole community. That is the kernel of the impressions gathered by Mr John Clegg, of Stoke, Nelson, a retired southern business man, who is just home from one of his periodic visits to the Homeland and the Continent. Mr Clegg was in Hawera yesterday, when a Star reporter spent an interesting half-hour in discussing with him the general situation in the Old World.' The New Zealander left Home on the eve of the British election, and, as he had been in Britain the previous year also, he was able to make some comparison of conditions. The unemployment dole, he contended, was destroying the self-respect of the workers. While the dole was available some would not> seek work. He cited the case of a married man with a large family who was offered a position at £3 5s a week. The man’s answer was: “I’m not going to work for five ‘bob’ a week when, with the family, we can get £3 out of the dole.” Domestic servants would deliberately pick quarrels with their mistresses and so be dismissed, when they came upon the dole! If they left voluntarily the assistance was not forthcoming, hence the precipitation of quarrels. There was an investigation of sorts as to the claims which each fresh applicant had upon the dole, but there was still heaps of people drawing aid to which they had no moral right.

Continent at Work. “Instead of Capital and Labour working together,” said Mr Clegg, “there is a class of workers at Home whose watchword is: ‘Down with Capital! Down with the bosses!’ I crossed to Belgium, and found everything working full speed ahead. I was in Ypres in 1919, when there wasn’t a house standing. This time I again took train for Ypres. When I got out at the station I looked around on a beautiful garden of roses, then said to myself, ‘l’ve made a mistake. This isn’t the right place.’ But it was. The whole city has been rebuilt, and well rebuilt, with everything most up-to-date. There remain only the Cathedral, which is not quite restored yet, and the famous- Cloth Hall, which may not be rebuilt, but preserved as an historic ruin. The fields and farmhouses are all alike ’ transformed. I asked how they had done it in the time, and found that it was by working from sunrise to sunset. Their hearts were in their work. The people’s hearts seem to be in their work in every country except Britain and her colonies. “The coal and iron industries in Britain are in a terrible state. Not only are big steamers being sent to Holland for repairs, but also that country is getting repeated orders for the construction of new steamers. Capital and Labour seem-to work more in harmonv on the Continent. The mills of Belgium are working full time, and making a profit of sometimes 100 per cent, while ours have difficulty in keeping going. Germany is a hive of industry. The Germans realise that their way out lies through hard work ; and, until the United Kingdom also realises that, it seems to me that there can be nothing but disaster.”

The Canker at the Heart.

Mr Glegg hastened to add that the fine, old, sturdy type of British workman is by no means extinct; he attributed the present position largely to the predominant influence of extremists, who are striving to get control of Labour organisations and tyrannise over the honest working man. He sees in the wholly unexpected swing over to Conservatism at the last election the voice of the mass of the people raised against such an intolerable state of affairs. But it would he wrong to say that the whole of the political Labour Party was tarred' with this same brush. Mr Ramsay MacDonald was an educated and apparently wellmeaning Socialist—an idealist, who had failed because he could not translate his ideals into real Jife, and because his hand had been to a certain extent forced by the extreme wing of his party. Besides the Prime Minister, Messrs Thomas. Clynes, and Snowden of the late Cabinet had been good men,, men animated by the highest political motives and concerned!for the general welfare of the' country; hut all had lacked experience in adminis-' trative work, and the lack became very apparent towards the end of the Ministry’s career. /

Turning again to the general life of the people at Home, Mr Clegg said that the. best workmen, in many instances, were leaving the country, largely for the United States, where they found better wages and better treatment within their own ranks.' And the British people as a whole were not so thrifty as they had been. They were so heavily taxed that they hadn’t the heart to save. “It is not an encouraging picture.” concluded the traveller. “But I should not he justified in making it attractive. To me it seeins anything but that; and the one thing that can make it attractive for the British people is hard work.”