The Daily News. TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1922. HARD WORK AND THRIFT.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 August 1922, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1922. HARD WORK AND THRIFT.

A statement recently made by the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout), when presiding at the Wellington sessions of the Supreme Court, calls attention to two outstanding needs of the day—hard work and thrift. His Honor, after expressing the opinion that some of the men before the Court did not want to work, and that in their case it was not an unsuccessful genuine search for work, went ou to emphasise that thrift, on serious and general lines, together with harder work, was the only hope of emergence from the financial depression, “although this was uot nearly so severe as in the earlier days of the colony, when men, living under harder conditions, often in tents, worked much more than eight hours a day for less wages, yet in those days crime was relatively less, the community being more innocent and sharing in a more general happiness/’ No comparison is possible between the men with the pioneer spirit and those of the present day, yet it is the work of these pioneers which paved the way for the thriftless and the “don’t want work” class who are now noisily making their presence felt in the Dominion, besides swelling the crime sheets of our courts of law. It may, of course, be argued that the pioneers worked for themselves, and that those who are in the unemployed ranks to-day are working—when they do—for mere pay without any hope of becoming anything better. That sort of contention has no foundation on which to build an excuse for thriftlessness and the determination to work as little as possible for the highest pay that can be obtained. r lhe important fact is that in the early days of this country labor troubles were almost unknown, yet most of the men of that time who were worth their salt, by living a simple life, working hard, and exercising thrift, gradually improved their position, and many worked their way to wealth and independence as the colony grew and prospered. It might be thought that such an outstanding object lesson would have been sufficient to prevent the labor troubles that have done so much towards deteriorating the ambition of those who have, great potentialities in carving out a way for themselves by brawn, muscle, grit and determination, instead of doing their worst to injure, if not to destroy, industry and progress. Tn the battle of life, hard work and thrift are the two steppingstones to success, whilst short hours of labor and high pay often tend to extravagance and discontent. In the last decade there have been remarkable changes and fluctuations that have severely tested the material whereof the people of the Dominion are made, much as if the goats were divided from the sheep, or the drones from the working bees. The war, of course, hnd its effect, and that also tested toe quality of our young men—those who answered the call promptly and sacrificed all home comforts, besides many hundreds of pounds they could have saved by working had they not considered country before self, and those who stayed behind and made a good harvest out of the scarcity of labor and the high wages’ What good did the latter do for themselves in the long run? Many of them wasted their unaccustomed surplus and are to-day swelling the number of unemployed,, while the returned soldiers had to start all over again and endeavor to make up the leeway by intense thrift and labor, a task that is all jaoje difficult in times of de-

pression which we have experienced. There has been more written and published on the subject of thrift in the last few years than on any other subject of importance, and yet reckless spending is continually in evidence, despite the high cost of both necessaries and luxuries. In his capacity as a Judge of the Supreme Court, Sir Robert Stout necessarily comes in contact with those who take to crime as a means of supplying their desires, rather than work, but as regards the generality of those who are to be found in the ranks of labor, as well as the community generally, the need for greater effort and systematic thrift cannot be too greatly stressed. The Dominion needs greater production, thrift and industrial peace,> and the people need to understand the danger of extravagance both in its direct effect and its influence on others. .