RAILWAY DISMISSALS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 195, 16 July 1930, Page 8

RAILWAY DISMISSALS.

POLICY CRITICISED. (By Telegraph—Special to Standard.). WELLINGTON, July 15. “How many of the £IOOO and £2OOO a year type have been ‘sacked’ from the Railway Department?” asked the Labour member for Christchurch East, Mr H. T. Armstrong, in the House of Representatives to-night. He cave the answer himself, adding that there were hardly likely to be any. He considered that the Minister of Finance’s recent statement was the very policy which was likely to make the position worse, and then the railways would get into an even woree state.

Mr Coates: We did not sack thousands of men. Why not vote for us? Mr Armstrong laughingly answered that the Labour Party could if it liked to jump- from the fryingpan into the fire, but it was not particularly anxious to do that. Where, he asked, was the sense of the Minister of Railways discharging men from his service and then going to a Cabinet meeting which decided to offer local bodies ( £2 for £1 on their wages bill to find employment for the men he had sacked. He could not see the sense of creating unemployment and than paynjg the local bodies huge snms of money to 'find work for the displaced ranwaymen.