LET US PRAY!

NZ Truth, Issue 1180, 12 July 1928, Page 8

LET US PRAY!

♦ . Coatesian Tears Fog Hope's Picture "Oh drive those tears (preeleotion variety). away-———." Speaking, evidently, under greet emotional stress and, apparently, to the aooompaniment of griefstrioken sobs at Carterton. Prime Minister Coates implored the people of New Zealand to report to the Government any oases of distress among returned men as oocasioned by unemployment. "TT is difficult for me to refer to it," 1 he said to a body of Carterton exservice men at their reunion, "but often I meet with the fact that there are returned men who are, up against it." - One imagines that it was at this juncture that a large lump In the Prime Ministerial throat impeded, for a moment, his speech, and, blinded by burning tears of sorrow which coursed down his cheeks, he was temporarily unable to gauge the impression his electioneering eyewash was having upon his comrades of the great war. Then, moved to greater flights of melancholic eloquence over the thought of the economic crucifixion of men who had fought for their King and their Country, Gordon Goates unburdened himself, for the berieflt of the million odd adults who would read his inspiring words over breakfast on the Monday morning. If, m this respect, the Prime Minister gave a thought to the thousands of general unemployed, a goodly number of whom are returned men, he doubtless consoled himself with the thought "what the eye does not see the heart does not grieve over." WORDS DO NOT HELP . The unemployed, for the most part, having neither breakfast nor the coppers with which to buy the morning paper with an of Gordon .Coates' sob-story^would neither be any better nor any worse off m their ignorance of the splendid prospects m store for them. "It makes me sad at times to know ,that some of our comrades..are m difficulties," Coates continued, presumably, as he handed his" saturated handkerchief to his private secretary and received a fresh one with which to carry on, "and the efforts and intentions of the Government are sympathetic to these men. "We are anxious to assist them and ■I think the people of New Zealand would approve of any legitimate assistance given these men when they are up against it. It is a responsibility that rests with each and every one of us to let.the Government know of these cases." No one will deny that. There is this much to be said; the Prime Minister kept himself well m. hand considering all the circumstances. As a digger himself, he must have exercised the most rigid forbearance m refraining from bitter criticism of the Returned Soldiers' Association of New Zealand for its lamentable apathy m not having told him years ago that there were thousands of returned soldiers unemployed, and many of their dependents on the verge of starvation. How on earth was Coates to know that thousands of his comradesin the great war could not get a job, and that many of them have deliberately turned criminal m an endeavor to feed their wives and children and find shelter for them? The Prime Minister's fervent utterances at Carterton, and his invitation to the people of the Dominion to enlighten him whenever they discover, a starving digger, and his dependents, seems to indicate that he has only just discovered what a really bad spin the unemployed returned men have been getting. JUST SO HAPPENED It is unfortunate that his discovery should have been delayed until almost the eve of a general election with all its worry and trouble to distract his mind! "Never mind who the man is, or what is his occupation," Coates told the diggers at Carterton. "The responsibility is ours, and mine, because I happen to be a comrade of his, even if I do not know him personally. We want to know about these'men." Surely there must be some mistake somewhere! Someone has blundered! "Truth" understands from various public men, publio bodies, the various branches of the Returned Soldiers Associations and from returned men themselves, that Coatee has, during the past two years at least, been told about the acute sufferings of many of his comrades of the late war owing to unemployment. Does Coates ask New Zealand to accept his word that he has,not m the past two and a-half years, had hundreds of specific instanoes brought under his notice where the evidence unmistakably proves that, these "comrades" he now professes to be so anxious to help, were denied that same help by the Prime, Minister and his colleagues? If Coates also asks the people to believe that he was unaware of the callous indifference with which numerous deputations to his Ministers were received when the question of unemployment of returned men and others was brought forward, he must surely imagine he is dealing with a nation of half-wits. There is not one definite suggestion that the Government intends to remedy the shocking state of affairs; there is no note of regret m all the hypocritical humbug Coates talked, for the Government's wilful disregard of the economic position it created by the inundation of New Zealand with thousands of skilled workers for whom there was no work and no land to settle on. The returned men are entitled to shout on election day, m answer to the Prime Minister's crocodile tears-^"et tv Brute!" and then vote him and his party into political oblivion, already overdue. , .