ELECTION TOPICS

Waikato Times, Volume 132, Issue 22150, 23 September 1943, Page 2

ELECTION TOPICS

“I asked a young woman recently what was the most important need in New Zealand today,” Dr. W. Bates told his audience at Timaru. The reply was “Silk stockingsl” “At present a man is entitled to a basic wage until he reaches his 60th birthday. He then becomes a State pauper on a miserable pittance. If I had my way I’d give the aged the basic wage and a bonus as well for they did the pioneering in the early days and we reap the benefits of it now,” said Mr W. H. Thompson, speaking at Hamilton.

“I am certainly in favour of higher pay for the lower ranks of the civil service when I find that there are girls in the Waikato electorate who attend at telephone exchanges from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. and alternatively from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. for the munificent salary of 30s a week,” said Mr J. H. Penniket, Independent candidate for Waikato.

“I am dead against strikes in wartime, yet it makes me angry when everything bad is said about the coal miners when they strike and no credit is given them for producing more today than they have ever produced. Mr Holland’s hatred of the working class was so intense that he was prepared to gaol the strikers rather than allow the coal to be produced.”—Mr F. W. Schramm, (Labour —Auckland East). “The present Government makes a great fuss about increasing pensions, and actually the increase is there; but its value is really less than formerly. Everybody knows that £2 a week after the last war had a j greater purchasing power than £3 a week has now. So the claim of the Government that is has benefited the recipients of pensions is not actually a fact.”—Warrant-Officer A. E. Allen, Democratic Soldier Labour Party candidate for Hamilton, in an address at Hamilton East. Contact between master and employee had been lost with the advent of the machine, said LieutenantColonel E. C. N. Robinson (Labour — Hauraki) when tracing at Gordonton the change in industrial relationships. Ruthless competition with all its accompanying miseries had sprung up. Charitable aid institutions had been created but these had proved merely palliatives. In 1933 the Labour Party had come into power with its beneficent legislation for the workers. This was in marked contrast with the policy that had declared that nothing must interfere with private enterprise a policy that had been productive of booms and slumps. A reference to gumboots when dealing with the subjects of rationing and control led to a bright interlude at a meeting addressed by Mr C. M. Bowden (National —Wellington West). “I don’t know' how you people stand with regard to gumboots,” was a remark by the National candidate which offered enticing bait to the audience. “They gave them to the miners,” said one.

Another voice: They can supply them to the fishermen but they cannot supply them to the farmers. A woman’s voice: Well, go fishing! “You cannot go fishing,” another member of the audience retorted, “you must have a licence.”_