LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 24832, 2 March 1944, Page 4

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Guaranteed Prices Sir, —It is interesting to note that in the plethora of remits to come before the Labour Easter Conference, is one advocating that a plebiscite be taken among farmers as to the continuance or otherwise of the "guaranteed price." How naive; trust Labour politicians to divide the people on an issue that is not in question. The principle of the guaranteed price is accepted. The amount of it is the burning question. The Government cannot divest itself of responsibility for the calamitous fall in primary production due mainly to inadequate payments and general bungling, by drawing the red herring of the guaranteed price system the t rfl il- Aghicola. The Home Front

Sir, —We civilians left behind on the home front send our sons, brothers, sweethearts away—perhaps never to see them again and then no stand by silently, without protest, while sectional greed of gain, by strikes, throats of strikes, go-slow tactics and stopwork meetings jeopardise their vital supplies and chance of survival. There is not one Member of our Cabinet with courage enough to rise on a public platform and denounce these actions for what they are—sabotage, treachery to our own flesh and blood and every fighting man of the United Nations.

If we, by our silence are cowards, what shall we say of the majority members of the offending sections concerned? Fearful and frightened of the abuse of a small disloyal minority thev follow them blindly, to their own perpetual disgrace. There is one great certain cure for this state of industrial and political rottenness, and it is the sweet, clean breath of public opinion, the people have it always in their power to sen that wrongs aVe righted. John G. Newsham. Pay for No Work -

Sir, —The statement justifying the action of the waterside workers in receiving pay for no work savs: "By agreement with the New "Zealand Waterside Workers' Union late in December it was decided that no work should bo done on the wharves after 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays." So that, so long as the Waterfront Control Commission and the Waterside Workers' Union are in agreement, it does not matter about vital supplies, and the soldiers who are protecting us can fight without the help which might have been given them after those hours. The word "agreement" is good % In your report of the "Pay for No Work",,incident you state that when the matter was referred to the office of the commission its spokesman in his apologia said that, "under the conditions relating to the engagement of labour on the. waterfront, when a man accepted employment ho entered into a contract to complete the job for which he was engaged. If he did not complete the job ho was penalised through the bureau." And to justify this ex gratia payment he continued, in effect, that "the employer similarly contracted to give the man all the' work hours on the ship." The person who made this statement knows, of course, that it is sophistry of the most blatant kind.

If a man is considered to bo under contract to finish a job when he takes his disc off the engagement board, then the least that can bo said is that it is not a contract as defined by Anson. This man can notify the timekeeper that he is knocking off at 5 p.m. any night, or at 12 noon if lie so pleases; ho is under no obligation that,ho recognises to work any overtime at all. I have known a man start a job which would last TO days, work for four hours, and then advise tho timekeeper that lie was "finished with tho ship," which is to say that that particular man was out of notion for the duration of that job, and I am not aware that any penalty was incurred on that occasion. This condition of affairs surely cannot be described as entering into a contract. Any waterside worker can, and in fact does, regulate his own hours of work, so that if long hours are worked it is because the individual concerned wishes to work those hours for the obvious reason. In view of all this, the inference that work on the waterfront on Saturday and Sunday nights has been abandoned merely as a demonstration of the power of the union is too strong to be ignored. CfTAS. BAir-RY.