FORESTRY WORKERS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 294, 6 August 1932, Page 4

FORESTRY WORKERS

Although a certain amount of the trouble may be attributed to the presence of the mal-contents and agitators who are seldom absent from these camps, sympathy will be f elt for the protest raised by the relief workers in the forestry plantations at Kain- - garoa, against the climatic conditions under which they are compeiled to work. The men make no complaints regarding the camp conditions or their treatment by officers of the Forestry Debartment, but apparently rebelled against what are undoubtedly most rigorous and trying working conditions. We have previously expressed the opinion that the Unemployment Board inflicted unnecessary hardship upon the men by refusing them any assistance in procuring suitable working clothing in which to withstand the bitter winter conditions in the plantations; this refusal has undoubtedly been a contributory cause of the trouble, and for this the board must accept the responsibility. A difficult and thankless task has been placed upon the Forestry Department in managing these camps under present conditions, and the fact that the men have no complaints regarding their treatment in that direction is a tribute to the sympathetic spirit in which the departmental officers have endeavoured to make the best of a bad job. Fortunately the trouble now appears to have been satisfactorily settled, but the credit for this does not lie with the Unemployment Board. Residents of Rotorua need no reminder of the depths to which the thermometer can sink during the winter, but conditions on the higher and exposed levels of the Kaingoroa plains are considerably more bleak than immediately around the town. Men working for the bare pittance which is paid to single relief workers, under conditions, such as those obtaining in the plantations during the depth of winter, can scarcely be expected to regard their lot with equanimity and some allowance must be made for them as a result.