A Cause of Salary Reductions.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 February 1922, Page 4

A Cause of Salary Reductions.

WHAT THE “GO-SLOW” HAS PRODUCED. In addition to the Civil Servants there are many farmers, orchardists, manufacturers, business people, professional men q.pd wage earners who are suffering reductions in their incomes. Some oAlie Civil Servants’ leaders have been | talking as if their class was the only | one being “cut.” Surely the thinking | members of the public services must j realize that this is far fropr being t&& 1 true position. The prove being made j to adopt the Labour Party politicians ! as the Civil Servants’ “friends” raise# the question of bow the Red advocates befriend the people in their attitude of tacit approval of the “go-slow” industrial policy which took place a little time ago. . Do the present sufferers from cuts in their salaries realize that one of the causes of the financial shortages was the reduction of supplies of coal and tlie great enhancing of costs which the state has required to meet. We note that Mr Holland M.P., recognises, when too late, that there is a connection between the limitation of our Do- j minion’s output of coal and the matter J I of retrenchment. In speaking on r e - ; trenchment at fjhe Party meeting,, he ,j said “it was untrue that the miners •' were responsible for the shortage of coal.” Now we find that Mr Holland in his published pamphlet on the coni question says (page 10): “In 1919 there was a go-slow strike in New Zea- 1 ' land, Nobody denies it, Tb ß mpiert?

had no option, they had either to cease work or to restrict the output before . they could get sufficient remuneration j to live upon while they were producing coal.” Mr Holland is now telling him-1 self that wjj.at Jie was untrue. The , public pf if.Z. unless jt Jias lost its me- i mory knows of more than one period i and one place when and >vher P the jn|n- . ers resorted to jthe .“go-slow” P>' af '- | tice. Railway services, tramway ser- 1 vines, works of various kinds were s? r ’ i jously restricted and tjie people -suffered ip the storage of domestic supplies. Mr Holland not only admits that the Min- 1 ers restricted output, but he seeks to justify it with the ridiculous pleat that if they had not gone slow they could not have got sufficient to live on. As they are paid biy the ton it is interesting to think of men increasing their remuneration by cutting dowp their own wages. The fact is known to every body that the record restrictions of coal output, winked at by the Labour Party, became so oppressive that the Government was compelled for reasons of national safety to import coal 1 from outside. This importation of foreign coal | has cost the country at least two million pounds,- just about the same as what the Civil Servants will lose if the whole three “cuts are imposed.” The position is that the Pedis policy imposed a loss of £2.000,000 on the Dominion which the Civil Servants amongst others arqf being required to meet because their “friends’” made it inevit- ' able. Well might the public servants exclaim “save us from such friends.” Of course the £2.000,000 is not the only : loss . that the Peds experiment of I.W.W. go-slow practice cost this Do- ' minion. It is amusing to find the Red ' politicans and industrialists after landing thousands of wage earners and salaried people in a. morass posing as r the good young men who could not pos--1 sibly cro wrong. There is an election ’ ahead and Mr Holland’s party is now 1 against the “go-slow.” They mean to ’ i,r. rrood to pay for the Red’s sins. 1 The Red are splendid talkers, but it is • their practice that is most killing and lliosc who would 1 fie friends with them ! had better consider the fact. ) (Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League).