HONEY, WHITEWASH AND TRIPE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24506, 15 January 1941, Page 9

HONEY, WHITEWASH AND TRIPE

TO THE EDITOB Sir,—ln last Saturday's Daily Times we read the statement of Mr D. G. Sullivan, Minister of Supply, concerning the absentees among factory workers after the holidays—in a .Wellington factory 40 per cent, absent, in a Christchurch factory 42 per cent, absent, "in Dunedin no complaints." And yet in the next column we read of a Dunedin factory with 17 per cent —i.e., 112 employees—absent when work was resumed, and 12J per cent —i.e., 80 employees—still absent on the following day. Nevertheless, according to the Minister, "the position was not as bad as would appear from the published statements." A most wonderfully comforting comment! Just think, sir, how much worse it might have been! What if the 80 had decided to have a third day's additional holiday! And why not? It's a free country, and aren't we fighting for freedom? Moreover, the defection of the hundreds of absentees is off-set by the fact, as stated by the Minister that "by far the greatest.majority of the employees did return to work on the due which all goes to show that we all (including the " smallest minority ") in New Zealand are as loyal to the Empire as the people of Great Britain and that New Zealand's war effort is an " all-in" effort. Q.E.D. "So give yourself a pat on the back." Why should your anonymous correspondent "War Effort" in this morning's Daily Times wax facetious about the Minister's statement and tax him with using "honeyed" words? Are not honey, whitewash and tripe as a mixture iust what we need in order to put ginger into us all? If only the generals in North Africa and England would try the mixture on the troops and what if our O.C.'s in South Africa 40 years ago had tried it on some of us! I picture the scene to-day some of the battalion have been given seven days' leave, and 42 per cent, of the leave-men fail to return to duty on the due date. Some of the delinquents don't like the colonel, or maybe the Sergeant-major—" He's not a nice man; he doesn't treat us as humans, or as his equals, so Im taking an extra day's leave." Does that colonel see red? Surely not. He merely asks the wild sergeant-major to order an issue of honey, whitewash and tripe, so "pleased that by far the greatest majority of the men are as loyal as any soldiers in the Empire. I must write to my son and recommend the mixture for his platoon. I like your Dunedin as a holiday place so much so that I am thinking of adding an extra week to my holiday and looking forward to receiving a dose of the same mixture from my parishioners when I return to them a week late—l am. etc., A. H. Norris. Maori Hill, Jan. 13.