WHAT IS IT COMING TO?

Taranaki Daily News, 9 June 1932, Page 2

WHAT IS IT COMING TO?

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —I rubbed my eyes to see if I were truly awake when I read the report of the deputation representing the relief workers which waited upon the Taranaki County Council on Monday. They asked ■ that the workers should leave at 8 o’clock for their work in the country instead of 7.30. Tn other words, they want trade union hours and conditions, this at a time when the country is “up against it” in order to provide the wherewithal to place these men in work in the country. It is just this sort -of thing that has landed New Zealand where it is to-day. You employ a tradesman a mile or two in the country and he requires the. time it takes him to reach his job deducted from his ordinary time. The; result is that no man in the country is. eager to employ him —lie is too expensive, he is too much of a luxury. In the old. days, before the Labour agitators were, in evidence, “organising” then" ‘‘oppressed” fellows, a man was glad to get a job -in the country, or anywhere else, and asked for no deductions from his time. He wanted work and money. To-day many want the money without work or with a minimum of work. Mr. Fulton said the men would work harder if they were given the half-hour. That is an exploded idea. At every arbitration court when hours were being reduced, wages increased, and irksome conditions and regulations on industry imposed the argument was invariably’ advanced that the men would produce just as much in the shorter hours. But results showed otherwise: the output came down in proportion and sometimes out of proportion. Anyhow, relief workers should be mighty glad of a job and should not stand on their “rights” in regard to this and other concessions they put forward. Another thing asked for was that the men should, not be asked to work on Saturdays! Good gracious, what next? How do they think other people would get on if they took a holiday on Saturdays? flow would production get on if the cows were left to look after themselves on Saturdays? But then we were told by Mr. Fulton that by not working the Council would save on their, lorries! Why not also save during the rest of the week?

The conditions of transport are not satisfactory, stated this precious deputation—there is overcrowding, there is too much speeding, and the like. Why not employ taxis, heated rpecially during the wintei, to take the workers to. the country? Time was when a man was glad to cycle to his job, or even walk, but they were days when independence and self-reliance were not sapped by the solicitude of successive paternal—one would be justified in saying maternal —governments, when there were no free tickets to football matches or picture shows, no free doss houses and no 3d dinners, no free firewood and no free houses. They were the bad old days—-from the Labour agitator’s point of view—but they produced the type of men that won New- Zealand from Nature and left a legacy that to a large extent has since been spoilt and dissipated by spoon-feeding and soft and flabby treatment of subsequent generations. —I am, etc., OLD TIMER, New 'Plymouth, June 7, 1932.