A Pathetic Tribute

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1034, 26 July 1930, Page 6

A Pathetic Tribute

KEEP OUR WORKERS BUSY

The Cry Of The Unemployed

THE workers in our local industries are greatly appreciating the campaign of The Sun to protect them by urging every loyal New Zealand man and woman to do their duty, and keep our workers in employment by buying their good products. That means the work being done here instead of by foreign workers, most of whom live under a far lower standard, and work under far worse conditions than our fellow citizens employed in our manufacturing industries.

The pathetic letter from “Kiwi,” printed this week, is a genuine and unsolicited human document from an actual sufferer through our importing craze, and at the present moment there are thousands seeking employ-

ment in New Zealand, who should be busy earning good money and adding to our national community income by producing the wealth we now buy overseas. The new tariff may help a little bit to check the flood of imports, but it lias*, ' ten drafted to secure more revenue from the same amount of imports, rather than to safeguard the •workers in our local industries, and we will need to find more work for our industrialists if they are to meet the increases imposed by the new budget, and the added poll tax now proposed for every male over 20 years of age. BUSY WHARVES OR FACTORIES What can be more embittering than for our unemployed skilled workers to spend their idle time taking ua occasional walk around our wharves, and watching the steady procession of huge ships always dumping thousands of tons of goods on us which these workers could make of ■equal or better value. It is in unemployment and poverty that the seed of discontent and even revolution llnds its most favourable breeding medium, as the busy and prosperous worker finds no time to listen to the “Wild Men," nor feels any sympathy with their anti-social ideas.

| It is difficult at the present time j to find openings for our youths to become skilled tradesmen and equipped I for the battle of life as trained ! artisans, but it becomes something of I a tragedy when our apprentices have

served their time, and finished their improvership, to find themselves dumped on to the streets, while goods they have been taught to produce are being dumped on our wharves to keep them out of a job. PRODUCTIVE WORK—NOT DOLES “Kiwi” and “the many hundreds of young men” whom he mentions as suffering like himself, are not the type who want a mere sustenance out of poll tax doles. That sort of relief could be reserved for the few unfortunates in the community who are practically unemployable. It is an insult to the feelings of onr skilled workers when they are anxious to play their rightful part in developing our resources and supplying our daily needs, to offer them a miserable pittance which is merely sufficient to keep body and soul together, when we could find work for all of them and many more' by buying what they can make, and so safeguarding their industries. THE BURDEN OF TAXATION The talk of the day is the burden of taxation, and how we can meet the added load which is declared necessary to keep the country going. Our manufacturers would cheerfully pay double the income-tax they paid last year if only they had the opportunity

of doubling their output, and if our people would only spend on locallymade goods what now goes overseas, the prosperity which would follow would soon find the clouds of depression dispersing, and there would be useful work in abundance for all. By expanding our existing industries and initiating new ones which could bo profitably and economically established here, we would have a great increase in population to share the load of taxation, as not only, would skilled workers be in great demand, but there would be an enormous increase in the consumption of raw materials, more employed in distribution work, and unskilled labour would be needed equally with trained trades men. CASH OR CHARITY DOCKETS? Every new industry established in our midst would be like a stone thrown in a stagnant pool, and the benefits produced would spread in ail directions. Our grocers, butchers, bakers, coal and firewood merchants would be better off supplying customers for cash earned in productive industry than receiving orders from the Charitable Aid Board for goods supplied;

and the splendid energy and enthusiasm now given so cheerfully to our charitable organisations could be concentrated on those sad cases which are always with us, instead of having to deal with the poverty and distress arising from the enforced idleness of able-bodied men. SPURNING OUR GIFTS OF NATURE When we have the men, the materials, the brains and the capital here at hand for supplying our own requirements and filling our every-day wants, it is the height of foolishness to allow them to remain undeveloped while we depend on outsiders for our supplies. It is a sin against the benevolence of Nature which has so bountifully endowed us for the building of a prosperous and happy little Britain in the South, and the neglect of our opportunities Imeans we must drop behind in. the race for national status. We are keen on beating Britain at our national game of Rugby, and if some of that same keenness could be instilled into beating our rivals everywhere at producing for ourselves, New Zealand would soon be a very different little country. KEEP OUR WORKERS BUSY AND WATCH PROSPERITY RETURN.