NO WORK, NO MEALS.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 March 1921, Page 9

NO WORK, NO MEALS.

THE REDS NEW GOSPEL. MR. P FRASER’S SERMON. (Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League.) Mr. P. Fraser, M.P., President of the New Zealand Labor Party (so-called) has been preaching at Timaru He took for his text St Paul’s injunction that “he who will not work neither shall he eat.” This is rather hard on the waterside workers who have struck work. What does he mean? Is it intended that those men who won’t work are to have their provisions stopped? Is this preaching indulged in as a hint to the bakers that they will not supply bread to those who refuse to work? Some explanation is due from Mr. Fraser as to why he, an ex-wharf laborer, chooses this particular time to preach about such a text We know that as a politician he likes to placate the women electors by scriptural references and sentimental talk. Can it b? that in this instance he is giving a hint to the married women that they should take the stand of telling their husbands that if they won’t work there will be no meals for them?

In the course of his sermon,' Mr. Fraser accused St. Paul of being a Socialist, and aft St Paul made no reply the supporters of Mr. Fraser would no doubt consider his charge proven. At any rate we can take it now that the gospel of the Reds in New Zealand is ‘no work, no meals/’ whether will ever attempt to apply this doctrine in cases where men definitely refuse to work is another matter.' It is a common experience to find that persons of a doctrinaire turn of mind make' a sharp distinction between faith and works.

The text Mr. Fraser used may be applied in several ways, thus if manual operations are alone to be defined as “work” then the politicians whose business is to talk, should be made to go without victuals. After all this doctrine of “no work, no meals” has its wider application which strikes at the root of the Utopianism which conceives that by simple division we can have all the good things of earth without hard application to production. In Russia the Soviet Government decreed an eight hour working day and placed the workshops under control of committees, many of which know little about organised production although splendid talkers. The output in many instances decreased so greatly that the people of the industrial centres were actually starving to death. . They had overlooked the fact y St. Paul’s text is a statement of natural law when applied generally. Lenin, and the other heads, saw* the country was dying and reversed the order of things They abolished the eight hours a day, and substituted twelve; decreed the institution of compulsory labor; established industrial conscription; abolished the works committees and instituted one man dictatorship; recalled technical experts at high salaries, and provided for rations according to the value of the work done. Lenin has simply told the Russian people you must work hard or starve. It is well that we do not require such drastic remedies in New Zealand. Even although Mr. P Fraser talks in praise of the Soviet revolution he would shrink in horror from the application of the same methods as are now being applied under Lenin’s orders. “He who will not work neither shall he eat” may apply nationally in New Zealand in this way that if Syndicalist agitators go on inciting the people to practice the I.W.W. methods of . “go slow,” “irritation strikes” and general hampering* of industry, our production and trade may be so reduced that many will suffer from want. We thank Mr. Fraser for drawing attention to St. Paul’s statement, as it is the strongest condemnation of strike methods anyone can supply.