THE BOTTOM OUT OF SELF-RELIANCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 102, 21 July 1927, Page 11

THE BOTTOM OUT OF SELF-RELIANCE

CAUSTIC COMMENT ON YOUNG MEN BY WANGANUI FARMER (Special to THE SUN.) WANGANUI, To-day. -•atlier warm discussion ensued at cue Hospital Board meeting yesterday, when the question of unemployment was introduced. Mr. W. Ritchie, a member of the board and a well-known farmer, mentioned the case of a man who went into the country to work. After staying at a farmhouse overnight and having his bed and meals provided he turned down the for which he would be kept and paid 35s a week. He was shown the work he was expected to do and said to the farmer: “That won’t suit me; I’m going back to town.” Mr. Ritchie, speaking of the young men of the country, declared: “The bottom's out of them as far as self-reliance is concerned. They’re contemptible, * they're muddled by sentimental humbug.” lie, too, was convinced that there was plenty of work for them in the country. “Some of them would be loafing on relief all their lives.” Mr. Rogers contended that it might be that some men abused relief, but he was not going to take those aspersions on his fellow workers “lying down.” He said it was a case of those who had always lived on a full stomach never knowing what it was to have an emptyone.