DAY BY DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14771, 10 October 1921, Page 4

DAY BY DAY

"Play the game" was the keynote of a speech given by Sir Sir J. Cook Joseph Cook, the reon cently-appointed High Hatred. Commissioner for Australia, at Melbourne the other day. The Acting-Prime Minister was referring to the necessity for all playing the game at the present critical juncture of the nation’s affairs, whether in private, public, nr business life. The report of the Pillaging Commission. he said, showed that some were not playing the game. Even in the inler-Statc trade the inquiry showed that £70,000 worth of goods were stolen each year. In this way a man who was getting a good wage for an honest day’s work violated every rule of the game. If he sought to obtain more by dishonest methods it was doing harm to Labour’s noblest ideas, and ought to be denounced from end to end of the country. According to an official statement, there had been 260 strikes in the coalmining industry In six months, aud as a result between £200,000 and £300,000 was lost In wages and incalculable harm done to the country. He did not say that all the strikes were the fault, of the workers, but whatever side was to blame, was it playing the game to cause so much distress and suffering when adequate machinery had been provided for the settling of all disputes? There were those in the community who were spreading class hatred up and down the country. It was a thing that must he scotched. It was getting seriousIf it went on it might bring about the destruction of the State, as well as of those in it. More production, not less, was required. Instead of ill-will and hatred, harmony should reign between all classes for the advantage of their own and the country’s interests.