“WALK TO WORK”

Taranaki Daily News, 5 September 1932, Page 9

“WALK TO WORK”

LABOUR PAPER’S HYSTERICS.

COMMENT ON JUDGE’S DICTUM.

Sydney, Aug. 26. As it should be a matter of public interest to realise what sort of teaching Mr. Lang and his friends purvey for their followers, two. gems of Langite criticism may be cited. The Government has proposed to settle thousands; of unemployed and their families on small farms, but this, in the eyes of the Labour Daily, is only a “callous plan” which those who have so cruelly devised it know full well can end only in the misery, starvation and ruin of the hapless workers. The second illustration deals with the. evidence put before the Basic Wage Commission, in regard to the needs of the wage-earner. Counsel for the employers had remarked that “wage earners show a strong disinclination to walk to work nowadays”; and Mr. Justice Browne’s comment was that “it was not unreasonable to expect a man to walk to work, even if it took half an hour.” Mr. Justice Cantor made his view of the case quite clear when he observed that “there mlight be some excuse for a worker to ride home habitually,” as he Would then be fatigued by the efforts of the day. But the bare suggestion that the worker may bo asked to make any physical exertion that can possibly be avoided is enough to drive the Labour Daily into hysterics, and it heads its comments on the barbarous suggestions of the judge with this delightful caption: “Walk to work even if it kills you!”