STRIKE THREATS

Timaru Herald, Volume CLV, Issue 22790, 14 January 1944, Page 4

STRIKE THREATS

Sharp Comment By Hon, Mr Semple

Government Will Not Be

Intimidated

(N.Z.P.A.i WELLINGTON, Jan. 13. “The Government is not going to be intimidated by threats of this kind, with demands for an increase in wages in one hand and a pistol in the other,” said the Minister of Railways (the Hon. R. Semple) when asked this evening if he had any comment to make on the decision of the Petor.c railway bus drivers not to operate the services on Sundays until they were paid double rates of pay for work on that day. There is too much of it!” added the Minister. Mr Semple said the bus drivers threatened some weeks ago to stop work unless their demands were met. He told them in double time that they wanted what could not be conceded. The whole wage system to-day was governed by the Stabilisation Order. The bus drivers had to adhere to the terms of that order just the same as every other wage-earner. “If a group of individuals is able to violate the

order to obtain concessions as the result of a threat to strike, then stabilisation will break down and collapse,” said the Minister.

“That would be to the disadvantage of every worker n the country. If we do not hold the wages we cannot hold the prices of commodities, for the two go hand-in-hand. If stabilisation were abandoned and costs and prices allowed to soar the greatest sufferers would be the wage-earners themselves. Danger of Inflation “There is more money in circulation in this country to-day than there .are goods for this money to buy, and an increase in the volume of money without recognition of the fact that there is nothing to buy with it, means inflation of the worst order—inflation in the very worst form—reduction in purchasing power!” Mr Semple said the question concerning the demands of the bus drivers was out of the question under present conditions. The Government was trying to hold stabilisation, and to

hold it the Government would, or otherwise this country would be in a bad way in a few months’ time. “The boys who are fighting in Italy to-day up to their waists in mud and blood, fighting for the freedom of NewZealand, in common with the rest of the peace-loving nations of the world, are not demanding double pay for Sunday,” said Mr Semple. “They are fighting 24 hours a day every day under the cold, grim shadows of death, and demands of this character from men living in affluence and safety do not appeal to me.

“In refusing to carry people they will be penalising men back from overseas who bear the scars of the battlefield, and their wives and relatives, and if it is these men’s wish to declare industrial war on the fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters of our soldiers overseas, and to refuse to carry them on the highways of this country, then I propose to allow the crime they wish to commit to fester in their own conscience—if they possess one!”