STILL 40 HOUR WEEK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 230, 27 September 1940, Page 6

STILL 40 HOUR WEEK.

It passes one's comprehension to read that employees of a Hamilton firm are offering to work 45 hours weekly and have been refused permission. What does the Prime Minister mean when he broadcasts constant pleas **to work for our lives" 1 and vet the Government refuses men when they want to follow in the steps of those workers at Home? What good is an "appreciation of a patriotic gesture" if nothing comes of it? You published in Wednesday's paper a broadcast of Mr. Cross, Minister of Shipping, alter his visit to Dockland and which should be enough to melt tia hardest heart. Let me repeat a few sentences: '"I have seen our fire-fighting men going home utterly worn—filthy dirty and seeming to prop each other up. . . ." '"I saw the wirked havots of the little homes—hundn-ds of them, and sights to bring tears to your eyes. I came back wondering how man could be so foul, and also how maa could bo so brave."' Yet here we live and sleep in peace and comfort, and when willing workers offer to help liy increasin!* their own working hours for that vital cfTort in production they are refused: What is the good of patriotic ><»,iotic< and such generous., self-denying contributions as published in Loth <mr p;i;>ers if the will to work is banned? This l>cautiful country would be \ery tempting to an invader, who. if he came, would certainly make our people work more than 40 hours a week. I should say that thia news would be good propaganda and delight Hitler. SERVICE.