A CAUSE OF SALARY REDUCTION.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 February 1922, Page 2

A CAUSE OF SALARY REDUCTION.

WHAT THE “GO SLOW’’ HAS . PRODUCED. (To the Editor.) £>ir, —In . addition to the Civil Servants, there are many farmers, orchardists, manufacturers, business. people, professional men, and wage-earners who are suffering, reductions in. their incomes. Some of the Civil Servants’ leaders have been talking as if their class was the only one being “cut.” Surely- the thinking members of the public services must realise that this is Tar from being the true position. The move being made to adopt the Labor Party politicians as the Civil Servants’ ’•friends” raises the question of how the Red advocates befriended the people in their attitude of tacit approval of the “go slow” industrial policy which took place a little time ago. Do the present sufferers from cuts in. their salaries realise that one of the causes of the financial shortage was the reduction of supplies of. coal, and the great enhancing of costs which the State has required to meet. We note that Mr. Holland, ’M.P., recognises, when too late, that there is a connection between the limitation of our Dominion’s output of coal and the matter of retrenchment. In speaking on retrenchment at the Party meeting he said “it wks untrue that the miners were responsible for the shortage of coa 1 .” Now we find t-nat Mr. Holland, in his published pamphlet on the coal question, says (page 10): —“In 1919 there was a go-slow strike in New Zealand. Nobody denies it. The miners had no option; they had either to cease work or to restrict the output before they could get sufficient remuneration to live upon while they were producing coal.” Mr. Holland is now telling himself that what he said was untrue. The public of New Zealand, unless it has lost its me'mory, knows of more than one period and one place when and where the miners resorted to the “go slow” practice. Railway services, tramway services, and 'works of various kinds were seriously restricted, and the people suffered in the shortage of domestic supplies. Mr. Holland not only admits that the miners restricted the output, but he seeks to justify it with the ridiculous plea that if they had not gone slow they could not have got sufficient to live on. As they are paid by the ton, it is interesting to think of men increasing their remuneration by cutting their own wages. The fact is known to everybody that the forced restrictions of coal output, winked at by the Red Labor Party, became so oppressive that the Government was compelled, for reasons of national safety, to import coal from outside. This importation of foreign coal has cost the country at least two million pounds, just about the same as • what the Civil Servants will lose if the whole three “cuts” are imposed. The position is that the Reds’ policy imposed a loss of £2,000,000 on the Dominion wfiich the Civil Servants, amongst others, are being required to meet because their “friends” make it inevitable. Well might the public servants exclain: “Save us from such ■ friendsl” Of course the £2,000,000 is

not the only loss that the Reds’ experi ment of I.W.W. go-slow practice cost this Dominion. It is amusing to find the Red politicians and industrialMta after landing thousands of wage-earnen and salaried people in a morass, poeing as the good young men who could n<M possibly do wrong. There is an election ahead, and Mr. Holland’s party is now against the “go slow.” They mean to be good—it is- unfortunately too late. The Civil Servants and many others have to pay for the Reds’ sins. The Rede are splendid talkers, but it is theii practice that is most killing, and those who would be friends with them had better consider that fact.—Your*, etc., N.Z. WELFARE LEAGUE,