SET CLOCK BACK

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 347, 7 October 1932, Page 5

SET CLOCK BACK

THE WAGES CUTS ALLEGED SUCCESSORS TO BALLANCE, SEDDON AND WARD LABOUR MEMBER'S ATTACK Wellington, Thursday. "The present method of handling un'employment is the greatest of all the political blunders which has heen, qommitted in this country-;" declared Mr. M. J. Savage (Labour, Auckland l$fe'st), in the co'urse of his financial debate speech, in the House of Re-" presentatives to-night. Mr. Savage said that wages and conditions that had taken 49 years to oBtain, had been smashed and the old industfial quarrels must begfn •again if Labour was to save its life from greater depths of humiliation. ' Tlie Unemployment Board was bun- | gling its way through with a task that rigKtly h'slonged to the Public Works Department and other departments oi ] State. The Puhlic Works Department | was rapidly becoming a thing of the | past. Relief work conditions were being substituted for conditions and rates of pay which enabled men to live a reasonable life and to supp ly their families with the decencies of existence. Definite Attack A definite attack is also being made on those state services which were the pride of men like Ballance, Seddon, Ward and others. These comprised the State Advances Department, the Public Trust, the National Provident Fund and the pensions systsm. "Enemies of progress," Mr. Savage declared, "failed after years of propaganda to stop the growth of these sociaj services. They are liow engaged in an attack upon the only foundation upon which these institutions rest — the cash incomes of the people. If they are successful in that attack, the whole superstructure of our social services must eventually be undermined and cease to exist. If the amount of wage reductions made during recent years had gone into the Consolidated Fund instead of into private pockets, these institutions would have no need to worry. Men might have heen employed in properly organised reproductive work and given a chance to strilce out for themselves. All. this has been brought about with the assistance of th'e alleged successors of Ballance, Seddon and Ward.