GOVERNMENT FIRM

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 39, 14 January 1944, Page 4

GOVERNMENT FIRM

BUS DRIVERS' DEMANDS

NOT TO BE INTIMIDATED (Press Assn) "WELLINGTON, Jan. 13 "The Government is not going to be intimidated by threats of

this kind with demands for an increase in wages in one hand and a pistol in the other," said

the Minister of Railways (Mr Scmple) when asked this evening if he had any comment to make on the decision of the Petone i-ailway bus drivers not to operate services on Sundays until they were paid double rates of pay for work on that day. "There is too much of it," added the Minister.

Mr Semple said that when the bus drivers threatened some weeks ago to stop work unless their demands were met, he told them the double time they wanted could not be conceded. The whole wage system to-day was governed by the Stabilisation Order and the bus drivers had to adhere to the terms of that order just the same as every other wageearner. "If a group of individuals were able to violate the order and obtain concessions a,s the result of a threat to strike, then stabilisation would break down and collapse," said the Minister. "That would be to the disadvantage of every worker in the country. WAGES AND PBICES. "If we don't hold wages we can't hold the prices of commodities, for the two go hand in hand. If stabilisation were abandoned and costs and prices allowed to soar, the greatest sufferers would be the wage-earners themselves, 'there is more money in circulation in this country to-day than there are goods for this money to buy, and an increase in the volume of money without recognition of the fact that there is nothing to buy with it means inflation of the worst order. Inflation of" the very worst form is reduction in purchasing power." Mr Semple said that conceding the demands of the bus drivers was out of the question under present circumstances. The Government was trying to hold stabilisation and hold it the Government would, or otherwise this country would be in a bad way in a few months time.

"The boys who are fighting in Italy to-day up to their waists in mud and blood—fighting for the freedom of New Zealand in common with the rest of the peace-loving nations of the world—are not demanding double pay for Sunday," said Mr Semple. "They are fighting 24 hours of the day and every day under the cold grim shadows of death, and demands of this character from men living in affluence and safety do not appeal to me. In refusing to carry people they will be jenalising the men back from over;eas who bear the scars of the battleield, including their wives and relatives, and if it is these men's wish l o declare an industrial war on the fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters of our soldiers overseas and refuse to carry them on the highways of this country, then I propose to allow the crime they wish to commit to fester in their own conscience, if they possess one."