Kid Gloves on the Home Front

Southland Times, Issue 24339, 21 January 1941, Page 4

Kid Gloves on the Home Front

TT WAS refreshing to read the -I- most recent outburst by Mr Semple, which was reported in our news columns yesterday. In characteristic style he complained that 1800 men in the Christchurch area were “scrounging on public money” in doing unproductive work instead of helping to complete useful irrigation projects in the country. “I appeal to them,” he said, “to do something worth while for the nation’s benefit while their fellow-men are risking their lives in the field.” But the real interest of Mr Semple’s outspoken attack is that he has not confined himself to appeals, as his more timid colleagues, Mr Webb and Mr Sullivan, have done. The public have grown tired of their kid-glove methods of pleading and cajoling and temporizing. When the most flagrant breaches of awards and agreements occur with monotonous frequency, they invariably decline to commit themselves and do their best to wrap the facts up in a misty haze of verbiage. Their usual subterfuge is to declare that there are faults on both sides and that neither the employers nor the workers are free from blame. An inquiry is promised and some makeshift compromise aimed at. The result has been that illegal stop-work meetings have become more and more popular, and quite obviously these are often a mere “try on,” undertaken in the knowledge that no serious effects will follow if the gamble fails.

But Mr Semple has had the courage to say not only that the men on non-productive work are at fault but that if they do not do useful work voluntarily they will be made to do it. This is a statement of the utmost significance and importance. It deals with an issue which has been looming up with increasing urgency for some time. Are men to be conscripted for productive work in the same way as for military service? There seems no logical reason why they should not be, if their conscription will help the war effort. But whether Cabinet will support Mr Semple in applying conscription to workers on the home front is another question. For many months after war broke out it refused even to introduce conscription for military service. If Mr Semple is allowed to have his way, he will almost certainly be faced with the necessity of enforcing it on some sections of workers. Will he fall back on the old Biblical rule. “If a man will not work, neither shall he eat,” or will he imprison them or subject them to military law? This is one of the testing points of democratic government in war time. Judging by the widespread demands for higher wages in the Australian war industries and the ominous threat of strikes, the Commonwealth Government may soon be faced with the same issue. Of course one method which Mr Semple might adopt would be to put a stop to what he himself calls unproductive expenditure. But that would probably involve him in conflict with his kid-glove colleagues. Now that the issue has been raised the public will watch with interest to see how sincere the Government was when it declared that it favoured conscription of everybody to help win the war.