MOMENTOUS TIE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 2 July 1936, Page 8

MOMENTOUS TIE

GOVERNMENT’S FIRST SESSION MINISTER AT MOTUEKA THE LEGISLATION TRACED INTERESTING MR SEMPLE The Government’s work over the past six months was summarised by the Hon. R. Semple, Minister of Public Works, in an address in the Institute Hall at Motueka last evening-. There w r as an overflow audience to hear the Minister, intense interest to whose visit was aroused by the fact that he had publicly stated that he intended to speak plainly to malcontents on the Motueka aerodrome job. The hall was crowded out half an hour before the scheduled time of starting.

Mr R. J. L. York, Mayor of Motueka, introduced the Minister and bespoke for him a patient hearing and gave a warning that interjectors would be removed by the police. The Minister at the outset made it plain that he had not been stampeded into visiting Motueka, but was merely there to give the people some idea of what had been undertaken by the Government during the past momentous six months so that they would understand that the Government had been striving with all strength and intelligence to carry out its election promises. The first thing the Government had done was to give unemployed a decent Christmas dinner. There was not much money to use, and as he had said before, money did not grow or. mulberry bushes. Mr Semple referred to the £IOO,OOO distribution throughout the country at Christmas time, and the £20,000 for charitable aid, not one copper of which would have been spent had the previous Government prevailed at the polls. Before he had become Minister of Public Works there were some married people who were paying 4s Gd a week rent for tents, said Mr Semple in giving some instances of his stewardship over the past six months. Now there was no more tent rent for anybody. Also he had found pakeha and Maori receiving different scales of wages, and he had rectified that, for he was not one of those who judged a man by the colour of his skin. He had found on public works camps that all the gear had been sold by instruction of the previous Government, and all he had had was long-handled shovels and wheelbarrows. MUCH HARD WORK

The Minister said that he could tell the people of Motueka that he had been a toiler all his life, having battled from pitboy to Minister, but he had never worked as hard in his life as in the last six months. Sixteen to seventeen hours a day was the rule rather than the exception. They had worked the rounds of the clock because they had a gigantic task, and they were not going to be side-stepped or hamstrung by any section of the people, tie would say to the Motueka people that he was the first Minister of the Crown in the Empire ever to concede to men on public works a 40hour week. A conference was even at that moment taking place at Geneva over the 40-hour week; and Mr Robert McKeen, New Zealand delegate, was in a position to say that New Zealand had adopted the thing that was only now being discussed by the rest of the world. They were having the five-day week for the first time. Was that something to be cursed about? He had lifted the wages of the men to a minimum of 16s a day, and he had been scolded by the employers all over the Dominion on the ground that he was setting the pace tor them; and that was what he had done it for.

In speaking of the seven days oft on full pay once a year, Mr Semple said that he had had the opportunity of making this concession, and he did it without asking. Not even Mr Cook or anybody else had asked him. When referring to the provision of stoves in married men’s quarters, the Minister raised laughter when he said that his food for two years at one time had been cooked by his wife in an oildrum. Radio would be made available to the public on an easy time payment system, and medical equipment had been provided. In fact he had tried to do his very best for his fellow creatures. Just as much had been paid by the taxpayers of New Zealand as they could stand; and as far as the relief of unemployment was concerned, Mr Armstrong had reached the limit. Some men had found it more profitable to leave their jobs and go into the cities on sustenance. The Government must have a remedy for such abuses. STRAIGHT AHEAD COURSE

When summarising the Government’s legislation, the Minister asked were they not stepping along the journey of real progress? Some people said: “This Labour Government! What have they done?” That was what one group of boneheads were saying. Messrs Forbes and Coates were saying: “They’ve bolted and red ruin’s facing the country.” Thus some said they were going too fast, and some that they were not going at all. The Government were carving the straight course, said Mr Semple, and “let them all yell.” He referred to the story of the smalPboys throwing stones at the pig to hear it squeal, and said that he would not be pushed to the left or jostled to the right by anybody; and he would treat the humbug and the slanderer with the measure of contempt they deserved.

“Then we had to tackle the railways,” said Mr Semple. “Oh, what a mess! We had a Railways Board . . .” A voice: "You gave them their running shoes, didn’t you, Bob?” The Minister: “Yes, they got their running shoes, with spikes inside and out.” (Laughter.) Mr Semple traced “all the railway lines started and stopped” by previous Governments. The starting of the lines had not been the present Government’s pigeon. All the equipment had been sold by the previous Government. The sponge had been thrown in and everything left a wreck. However, Labour was completing the lines in the interests of the country.

The Employment Promotion Bill was touched on, and the Minister’s attempt to wipe out sweating in the transport system. The Co-ordinating Board should have been called the “Discordinating Board.” The Minister himself was now the appeal authority saving the country the amount of £4,500 a year. It was a scandal, a tragedy, that there should be a death a day in motor accidents in the country. Rafferty rules existed in the transport system. There were six "hit and run” cases last week, and the Minister was "after those gentlemen,” the penalty having been greatly increased for such offences, to five years or a fine of £SOO and the cancellation of tiie license.

A voice: "lt ; s not enough.” The Minister: "Well, if it's not enough I will double it.” The State Advances Corporation was mentioned, the Minister stating that a dividend hunting concern had been abolished, the Government having stopped the dividend. If there were any dividend, then it should go to the people who were making the homes, and not to parasites who had enough without the dividend. Homes would be built for the people who would be able to meet the rent bill instead of taking rooms in the city. "And some of the rooms they walk in to they have to back out of.” The Government was determined to clean up the slum life of the cities, and restore home life. "Take away home life and after ali, you take away everything worth while.” ON THE AIR

Referring to broadcasting, Mr Semple said that Parliament would oe on the air every night shortly ,“so that the public could tune in if they wanted to, and if they did not want to they could tune out again.” (Laughter.) The Minister spoke of a benevolent old gentleman at a YA station who had said to him: “You know, Mr Semple, if we don’t like you, if you say anything you shouldn't, we can cut you oil.” Well, they were not going to cut him off or cut him in. That was the first and last time they were pop-eyed at. He was now going to have as many "pops” as he liked and no benevolent old gentleman was going to stop him. They were not afraid to tell the people of New Zealand what they were doing. If any member of Parliament was afraid then he was either a coward, a hypocrite or a humbug.

Dealing with guaranteed prices, the Minister said that land values were always chasing commodity values up, but forgot to chase them down again. It was the Government’s big job to bring the land value down to the basis ot the guaranteed price. The farmers had got a "pretty heavy Matilda.” Under the Invalidity Pensions Bill the old people would be taken away from the cold touch of charity. At present they had to hobble to the Hospital Board for a few crumbs. They were God’s people anyhow and why” should they grope for charity? While not attempting to fly the flag of egotism, the Minister would say that the Government had done more in this session of six months than Richard John Seddon (and he reverenced Ills name) had done in 16 years. A voice: “No.”

The Minister: “Oh yes, we have. If he had lived to-day he would have been with the Labour Party, and if he were living he would do the same as we have done. He would have been compelled to dig deeper into the cause of the nation’s wrong than he did. Circumstances have changed.”