The Waikato Times SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1940 OTAHUHU RAILWAYMEN’S DEMANDS

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21200, 24 August 1940, Page 6

The Waikato Times SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1940 OTAHUHU RAILWAYMEN’S DEMANDS

Whether the Prime Minister’s suggestion that the resolution of the Otahuhu workshop employees was only the opinion of an irresponsible few or not, the fact remains that the demands do betray a remarkable lack of appreciation of New Zealand’s needs at the present time. Alter recording the opinion that the Government’s present administration is not in the interests of the workers, the resolution demands : “(1) That owing to statements made by manufacturers, wholesalers and so on that the cost of living will further increase, a rise of at least 10s a week be given. (2) That the Government take immediate steps to .see that real wages are not in future negated by a rise in the cost of living. (3) That conscription of wealth, including all profits and all incomes over £SOO, be instituted. (4) That the shilling in the pound taxation be removed and the Federation of Labour proposals substituted. (5) That Messrs Coates and Hamilton be removed from the War Cabinet. (6) That all subsidies to vested interests be stopped.” The question might be asked where the men responsible for the resolution stand politically. It would seem that they could not support a Government that is guilty of all the sins enumerated in the resolution. Their hostility to Messrs Hamilton and Coates makes it equally clear that they do not support the Opposition. Their political allegiance, however, matters little. What does matter is the effect upon the community of the policy which they advocate, especially at a time when the Empire is fighting for its life. The war could scarcely have been in the minds of the men when the resolution was passed, for it amounts to a demand that other people should bear the burden of all economic responsibilities, leaving labour free from any call for financial sacrifice. Why they should demand the ejection of the two Opposition members from the War Cabinet, they alone know. Among most responsible people in New Zealand the desire is for even closer co-operation among the political divisions with the common objective of war-time unity and efficiency. Why at this stage attempt to influence class feeling, political enmity and division of effort ? In marked contrast is the attitude of British Labour, one of whose leaders on the same day proclaimed : “Fundamentally, this is a workers’ war. Our soldiers, sailors and airmen come in the main from working-class homes. We will not let them down.” Unpatriotic motives probably did not enter the minds of the Otahuhu men, but the policy they advocate is not calculated to unify the country in an all-in war effort aimed at efficiency combined with equality of sacrifice. Each one of the points in the resolution cuts across the wartime policy of the New Zealand Government. The Otahuhu men are just as much entitled to criticise the Government as is any other section of the community, but by the same token the public is entitled, and obliged, to assess the demands at their true worth. The first and the second points in effect demand that wages should take the lead in a race for general inflation. The third asks for conscription of wealth which has long since been fully conscripted. The fourth demands the abolition of the National Security Tax which is a general sharing of the costs of war. The fifth proposes a return to one-party Government and to disunity, and the sixth the abolition of “subsidies to vested interests,” the meaning of which is not very clear.