“SEDITIOUS PRO PAGANDA.”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18831, 20 March 1931, Page 8

“SEDITIOUS PRO PAGANDA.”

“WOLVES IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING.” UNDESIRABLES AMONG UNEMPLOYED. “It was said at the meeting that the men who can tell the biggest lies get away with it,” said the Rev. C. W. Duncumb, at the Unemployment Committee meeting last evening. when urging the claims of the card index system in connection with the engaging of men required for work. “We want to get away from the system which compels men to assemble outside the office waiting for work. There is also an undesirable element which we want to do away with. I recognise that there are difficulties in the way of the card system. It has been suggested that there should be something in the nature of black-listing the undesirable quota. There are not many of them, but there is no doubt that the congregating of the men in front of the office gives the undesirable element an opportunity to indulge in seditious utterances, and to spread their doctrine. These men are blackening the name of the unemployed in .the town, and give the appearance that there are very few genuine unemployed in our midst.” Mr Arnold, chairman of the Unemployed Committee said: “Statements have been levelled at the Unemployed Committee of Timaru that some of our committee are receiving an unfair share of the work that is going. That is erroneous. I have made an appeal to the men. I stepped into the organisation of the unemployed. There must be an organisation. Revolutionary methods and strike methods are no good. They get us nowhere. I have told the men that these methods get them in the neck every time. I stepped into it on the understanding that these men would conduct themselves in a right manner. We carry with us the sympathy of the public of Timaru. We are deeply grateful to the business people of this town. They have assisted us nobly and right-well. There is an element in our ranks which is not honourable. We find day after day that they are trying to put it across the other fellow, and we are doing our best to see that the men entitled to work and having the most dependents get their fair share of the work going. I have given those men who are dishonourable enough to try and put it over the other fellow to understand that so long as I am in their midst as their chairman, directly there i 6 anything of an unjust nature done I will wash my hands of them and of the whole concern. There is a deep need for co-operation in these days through which we are passing. The Unemployment Committee is doing its best to relieve the position. We have established a little fund, and we have been able to pass along goods, such as groceries and clothing to no fewer than five families in Timaru. There are little children wanting boots and clothing which their father cannot buy. I have never known anything like it in my life. We stand for what is right and for order, and we are out to do the best we can to assist the Unemployment Committee and the Council to rectify things that are wrong.”