PRIME MINISTER’S PLEDGE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 152, 23 March 1939, Page 10

PRIME MINISTER’S PLEDGE

Workers To Share In Production Increase PLEA FOR GREATER OUTPUT Lifting Standard Of Life By Telegraph—Press Association. AUCKLAND, March 22. “My pledge is that every increase in production shall be reflected in vour income. You arc going to get your share,” said the Prime Minister. Mr. Savage, addressing employees of an Auckland factory today. “We are engaged in a big job,” he added. “It is to build New Zealand, and we want to make the path through life easier than it has been. We cannot lift our standard of life unless we produce in greater quantities than ever before. Our job is to get things going with a swing.”

By control of imports Hie Government bad in effect selected things it was going to take from abroad, and its promise was that the things that had been shut out would be produced iu N\w Zealand, Mr. Savage said. Unless that were done the standard of life must fall. He expressed tlie hope that production would be increased and gave a pledge that in any increase in production the workers would share. Mr. Savage spoke on similar lines at two other factories he visited. He said the Government wanted the country to manufacture a good deal more of its needs, because that was the only way of building New Zealand. It would not do only to run farms and buy everything else needed abroad. That was one of the reasons why import control was introduced. ‘As the trade of New Zealand expands our job is to see to it that your incomes expand, too,” he continued. “There is no sentiment in that. Unless the rank and file of the people have incomes something like equal to the value of their production we are bound to have periods of unemployment.”

The Prime Minister said he was not talking at anyone wheu he made those remarks, but was meaning them to be heard by employer and employee alike. The Government was asking for more production and guaranteeing that the people would be able to buy it. He appealed to the producers to do better than ever before.

“Never forget that the Government of your own country begins in the workshop,” be said. The Government would get a lot of abuse in days to come, but it had bad some in the past and was not afraid of it.

“If yen go slow, any Government will tumble before your eyes.” Mr. Savage said in making bis final address of the day, “The Government Is setting out to build New Zealand industry. We are not satisfied just to mill; cows, however important they may lie. We are asking the people to do more than ever before. We are asking for the best that is in you to till the snip created by import control." Similarly Mr. Savage apc-ah-d tithe employers. He said tb.-n unless firms had some guarantee of securit, they could not be expected to aceepi increased risks. His words applied io both those who received wages ami those who paid them.