“WORKERS’ PARADISE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 398, 5 July 1928, Page 11

“WORKERS’ PARADISE”

OPINION OF NEW ZEALAND MAKING ENDS MEET ON £4 A WEEK (Special to THE SUN) DUNEDIN, Wednesday. “New Zealand agitators should be placed on a boat and sent on a tour of the Continent to investigate the conditions under which the workers are employed. New Zealand is a paradise for the workers. This was Mr. C. A. Shiel’s answer to Mr. R. Harrison at the Conciliation Council sitting to-day, when the quarry-workers’ claims were being argued. Mr. Harrison complained that the men could not make both ends meet when they only got £ 4 a week. “Do you mean to say,” asked Mr. Harrison, “that if you w’ere in power you would not consider the state of affairs in the Dominion could be improved?” Mr. Shiel: They are my ideal. Mr. Harrison said it had been conclusively proved that when the conditions of the working population were improved greater prosperity for the nation followed, but the workers had to fight continually against such arguments as had been raised bv the other side. “It is not the distribution of wealth we are fighting against,” he said. “We are fighting so that the workers will get a greater proportion. There is £285,000,000 or national wealth in New Zealand, and we are fighting for the distribution of that.” Mr. Shiel: Why not make the workers the owners? “Perhaps we will do that some day,” replied the workers’ agent. “This is called a Conciliation Council, but I cannot see where conciliation has come in.”