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Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19444, 2 November 1925, Page 7

RAIDING THE WORKERS’ WAGES More Truth About that 7s 6d Confirmation from Tory Sources about Mating the Worker Pay Tn their attempt at reply to the Labour Party’s exposure of their scheme to make the workers pay for Motherhood. Endowment by an all-round reduction of wages to the extent of 7s 6d a week, the Tories have resorted to two devices. They smote the heavens with their profanity and they wriggled. For the profanity the Hon. A. D. McLeod was responsible; the wriggle was executed by that inquiring innocent, the Prime Minister. The Hon. A. D. McLeod may be deleted from this controversy—he did protest too much —but with two others, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour, we desire to have a word. - First, however, we must deal with a question raised by the smoke-screen artists to cloud the issue. This question asks why the Labour Party raised no objection to the 7s 6d cut when the Labour Department’s Report was presented to Parliament. The ; nswer simply is that when these Reports are tabled they are not in printed form, and ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE MEMBERS. Members are, therefore, forced to discuss the business of the Department WITHOUT BEING ALLOWED TO KNOW WHAT IS IN ITS REPORT. Only when the Report is printed are members permitted to read it and inform themselves about its contents. THE MOMENT IT WAS AVAILABLE THE LABOUR PARTY EXPOSED THE NEFARIOUS PROPOSITION IT CONTAINED. MR. ANDERSON’S LOUD SILENCE Now we will deal with the Minister of Labour (Hon. G. J. Anderson) first, for he it was who tabled the Report, and was thoroughly well acquainted with what was in it. If any Minister should have made an explanation, it was the Hon. G. J. Anderson, and not Mr McLeod or Mr Coates. But what did Mr Anderson do? As Mr. H. E. Holland said in the Wellington Town Hall on Wednesday, he maintained THE LOUDEST OF LOUD SILENCES. Like Brer Fox, he lay low and said nothing. Why? Only for one reason: he knew that if he made any statement at. all he WOULD HAVE TO CONFIRM THE LABOUR PARTY’S CRITICISM OF HIS REPORT. Mr Anderson, therefore, wise in his day and generation, quietly left his colleagues and their flunkeys on the capitalist press to explain away, if they could, the policy he himself had propounded. HIS SILENCE GAVE CONSENT. MR. COATES’ YARN The Hon. Gordon Coates wriggled thuswise: he said that the Secretary of Labour had “quoted” from Mr Piddington. BUT THIS STATEMENT IS WHOLLY DEVOID OF TRUTH. Two facts prove this: (1) the paragraph of the Report in question (page 18, Labour Department’s Annual Report, 1925) is not quoted, as anyone can see, and (2) it cannot possibly be a quotation from Mr. Piddington, BECAUSE THE METHOD PROPOSED IS NOT MR. PEDDINGTON’S AT ALL. Mr. Piddington’s scheme of family allowances PROVIDES FOR CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE EMPLOYERS; the scheme in the Tory Government’s Report definitely proposes to raise the money “WITHOUT INCREASING THE TOTAL WAGES NOW PAID BY ANY EMPLOYER.” The employers only enter this scheme to deduct the 7s 6d from the workers’ wages. As the Report states: “In actual practice, each employer WOULD BE REQUIRED TO DEDUCT THE SUM DECIDED ON FROM THE WAGES OF EACH OF HIS EMPLOYEES.” The contradiction between this proposal and that of Mr Piddington exposes the Prime Minister’s statement that it is a quotation as a feeble and miserable camouflage, utterly baseless in fact. Wriggling and sweating will not alter the fact that the Tories were caught with the tools FOR THE BURGLARY OF THE WORKERS’ WAGES in their possession. No wonder they are angry. . - —* THE NEXT GRAB AT WAGES Now let us add to what we have written, quotations from recent Tory speeches in the House which unmistakeably reveal the fact that they have been discussing DEDUCTIONS FROM WAGES TO MAKE THE WORKERS FIND THE MONEY for legislation now financed from THE PUBLIC REVENUES. Hansard No. 19 reports a debate on September 10 last on a Pensions Amendment Bill which the Labour Party forced out of the Hon. G. J. Anderson after HE HAD REFUSED EARLY IN THE SESSION TO CONCEDE ITS MAIN’ PROVISION—viz., the 2s 6d rise in old age pensions. During his speech (page 214) the Minister was pressed by Labour members on behalf of the blind and other sufferers, and this is what he said:— “I hope the electors will show such confidence in the scheme to be submitted to the country shortly. Next year I may be able to obtain power to bring in a satisfactory CONTRIBUTORY PENSION SCHEME which will cover all these cases and also cases of invalidity.” Only one meaning can be attached to this: the Minister of Pensions is bent upon a policy of ENDING THE PRESENT PENSIONS SYSTEM, under which pensions are paid from the public funds, and of substituting for it a system under which the workers WILL BE DIRECTLY CHARGED for old age and other pensions. The whole idea is to EXEMPT THE RICH TAXPAYER from his present obligation to meet at least some of the expense of this social legislation, and put the entire cost upon the shoulders of the workers. A TORY CUT AT SINGLE WORKERS Mr. Hawken (Tory) spoke in the same debate, and he was even more explicit than the Minister of Labour. He plainly stated that THE WAGES OF SINGLE WORKERS WERE TOO HIGH, and that these workers should be taxed—in other words, have their wages cut—to provide the money needed for pensions. What he said may be read on page 220 of the same Hansard* Here it is:— “I believe that we have a community which under the circumstances ..« can contribute. It is but seldom that THE WAGES OF THE YOUNGER PART OF THE COMMUNITY—the unmarried—are considered in this House in regard to pensions, but I feel sure that THERE IS A MARGIN OVER AND ABOVE LIVING EXPENSES which the State will eventually in some way HAVE TO DRAW ON in order to make provision for pensions, and so I believe that the time is opportune for bringing in a contributory scheme.” It is clear that both the Minister and Mr. Hawken want to deprive the workers of a right the law now provides, and make them pay from their wages for this right in future. TORIES’ HYPOCRITICAL STUNT Here in two cases, then, we have expressed exactly the same idea as !s outlined in the Department of Labour ’s proposals for family allowances. Will anyone suggest that the Tory who wants to make the workers pay for pensions is really opposed to making them pay for family allowances? The truth of the matter is this: the Tories openly admit their anxiety to saddle the workers with the cost of pensions, but when the same principle is discovered in a Government Report in relation to family allowances (which was not circulated until after the session), and the exposure of this threatens them with the loss of votes, they pretend to know nothing about it and repudiate it with profane language and rowdy clamour. The evidence that they have been discussing the 7s 6d reduction is not only in the Labour Department’s Report, but in the attitude they take towards the pensions system. The method in both instances is ONE AND THE SAME. Does any one believe them when they approve it in the one case and renounce it in the other? Vote ™ Labour