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Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 10 March 1923, Page 1

Hawera & Normanby Star. Patea County Chronicle and Waimate Plains Gazette

m. xlii

Published Daily

HAWERA: SATURDAY, MARCH 10,1923

Established April 10, 1880

PRICE TWOPENCE

is Pages.

-177:. —^— ..* MAIDEN SPEECH IN THE HOUSE.; i I Hansard proofs of the maideq speech made by Mr. J. R. Corrigan, M.P., in the House in the recent session have just come to hand. Mr. Corrigan said: Along with others I wish, to congratu- ■ late you, Mr. Speaker, on the high honour that has been conferred upon you by members of t-hfcs House in electing you to the chair. I hope that you will, live long to enjoy the distinction, and'l feel certain, from what I have seen of you during this short session, that you will fill the position as effici- : ently as any Speaker that has preceded you. I also wish to congratulate the mover of the Address-in-Reply. I could feel for him when he started, for I am in the same position myself —this is my maiden session. I think that any person who could listen to the mover of the Address without letting party actuate would admit that that gentleman is.on the wrong side of the House. He is a young man. He has not come under the hypnotic influence of the - Prime Minister yet, and if he keeps away from that we shall shortly. I am sure, see him sitting on the Liberal benches in this House. What he advocates is Liberalism, pure and simple. Sir, we have sat here four days listening to speeches in which members on the Reform benches say there is no difference - between Liberalism and Reform. .1 am a colonial; I was born in this country. As you can see, I have been out in the frost a bit and am not so young as I used to be. but I claim the right to express my opinion on Liberalism, because I have seen it from its infancy in this country; and I say that to state that the Reformers are no different from the Liberals is to . make a gross misstatement. • I wish to congratulate th© seconder of the Address-in-Reply, the honourable member for Wairarapa. There is no doubt that he is under the hypnotic influence of the Prime Minister. That is what has led him to that side of the House. He is a brother primary-producer of mine, and I am quite certain he cannot claim that the Reform party have assisted the producers to anything like the extent they should have done during their term of office. However, I feel certain that as tlie hypnotic influences wear off he will in time come to realise he i& here, the same as I am myself, to work in the best interests of the country, and to help to legislate for the welfare of the masses and not for one section of the community only. My Labour friends on the cross-benches I have listened to with great attention, and certainly some of their arguments may have influenced in some directions some of; the members of this House. But the way I look at this controversy about wages is this: if they would only piit their energy into persuading the workers of this -country to be thrifty and to give individual effort, then they will be carrying out a policy which will ibe not only to the benefit of the workers of the Dominion, but to the advantage of the whole people. I am a worker myself. 7 An Hon. Member: That is a Reform argument. j Mr. Corrigan: Never mind what kind of argument it is. / It is the truth. j What we want is individual effort. _ It j does not matter to me what I pay a man in wages, provided that he earns 1 them. Is it sane or business-like for ! any man to expect £1 when he earns only 10s? .I have worked un from the bottom rung of the ladder. 71 started out in life when I was ten years of age, and there. is no mauual work I have not done in this country, and I say that although my sympathies are with Labour —there is no doubt about that, and when I say it I am not camouflaging—Labour must also show itself deserving of encouragement. The gentlemen who so strongly urge the cause of Labour on the cross-benches of this House only look at the matter from a one-eyed'point of view. Those members must recognise that if they want. to.do the right thing by Labour in this country, and encourage thrift, they must also, encourage individual effort. .To indicate what has been my "" experience in this connection I might say\ that I happen to be chairman of a timber company which has a block of bush and a'sawmill, I have £6000 invested in that business, and for four years we have employed thirty-five men, and .1 can assure the House that I i have never received a penny piece in the way of a dividend from that company, nor has any other member of the company. An Hon. Member: Bad management. Mr. Corrigan: Never mind what you think. The position came to this: last January twelve months things got so bad that I went up to the mill myself, and I called,the thirty-five,men together at lunch. I said to them, "1 have com* here not on a very nice errand, and it is to tell you of the conditions obtaining outside that you have no idea of, m - and to tell you also that we.'have no option but to reduce your wages by Is !a day." ;'We "were then paving "the union rates. Well, the men confronted me with this argument:. they said the cost of living had not gone down. Well, I consider that any man who thinks tKe position out will realise this, that 80 per cent, of.the cost of living consists of wages, and if men are not giving their best individual effort, that keeps the cost of living up to a certain extent. An Hon. Member: Oh, indeed. Mr. Corrigan: Some of those honourable gentlemen do not like it, Mr. Speaker, but yon have tq speak out the facts bluntly and truthfully. There is ; no. doubt 'that if a man—it does riot | matter who he is—in selling his labour '' does not give .good value for the wage : that he receives, he is 'just as big a I profiteer as any other man-who is pro-' fiteering in this country. If my Labour ! friends will set about the inculcating'j of that truth in the minds of the work j ers of the country—that they give value for the money they receive—l" am quite certain that all this bitterness and bickering.in the House over wages and the cost of living will cease. I-would like to say this: We are'all cogs in the huge wheels of industry, and it is the duty of the Government to keep the wheels* f of industry revolving xvith as little-friction as. possible. We cannot all be coal-miners, we cannot all • be navvies, we cannot all be railwaymen, we cannot all be storekeepers or drapers; and it is time we all realised j- —and the Labour people in particular —that we have to play our different a parts and to try to keep the wheels of industry running with as little friction _ as possible. We know very well that capital, cannot get on without Labour, d and we know very well that "Labour * cannot live without capital. In this d •country we depend largely bn the -. primary products of the country -. the secondary industries are not developed