The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1914. WORK AND WORKERS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 55, 31 October 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1914. WORK AND WORKERS.

In his Budget speech the New South Wales Premier and Treasurer dealt, 5U cdfiiFse, with the measures taken for the relief of the many who have lost employment in this State since the outbreak of the war, and in this connection he found occasion to sortie of those who are foremost in peremptory demands that the Government shall at once -supply whatever is lacking, writes the Sydney correspondent of the Wellington Post. Mr Holman in the ■, speech referred to, said: “At Broken Hill at the present moment a body of men are simply hanging around the town in idleness imagining that they have a right to be maintained in idleness while they sit down and, wait for better times to come. That is conduct unworthy of the independent manliness of the Australian worker, and conduct which has no sympathy on this side of the House.” Australians are waiting now to read of how the idlers at Broken Hill, where the “red flag” extremists are much in evidence, have denounced the Labour Premier of New South Wales as a traitor and the hireling tool of the capitalistic class. The correspondent goes on to say that the newspapers give interesting stories of the behaviour of some of the Broken Hill men, professedly quite destitute, for whom,.the New South Wales Government provided free railway carriage to coastal districts, where employment would be found for them on railway and other public works. Not only were the men carried for nothing, but they were also provided by the Works Department with refreshment on the way. But it proved that some of them had plenty of money of their own to spend on drink, and several times on the journey the special train had to be delayed u bile the passengers were being induced to leave the refreshment rooms. Nearly one hundred and fifty of the men are said to have deserted during the journey, most of them at Sydney. Of those who did reach the scene of Government employment, it was found that many were totally unsuited for pick and shovel and hammer and drill work, while a large number resented being asked to do a fair day’s work.