STRIKE SETTLED

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21370, 14 March 1941, Page 6

STRIKE SETTLED

MINISTER CRITICISED REPLY BY MB SEMPLE “COMMUNISTS ARE A MENACE" (By Telegraph.—Press Association) WELLINGTON, Friday “My attention has been drawn to a statement in the Wellington papers reporting that approximately 200 returned soldiers who are concerned in the dispute at the Hutt workshops have taken exception to my remarks regarding trouble-makers in the workshops,” said the Minister of Railways, the Hon. R. Semple, today. “How returned soldiers can twist my remarks to take them as a challenge against the loyalty of returned soldiers is beyond me. It is as absurd as it is ridiculous,” he said. After quoting what he had said, Mr Semple said that he never had the faintest idea that any returned scidiers were associated with the handful to whom he had referred. He had made it abundantly clear, he said, that his remarks did not apply to the rank and file of the workers. Nothing To Withdraw He did say that there were a few men in the workshops who were associated with the Communist movement and therefore he had nothing to withdraw and no apologies to make for what he had said. He would leave it to the pubile to judge whether he had said anything that could be taken as offensive to returned soldiers, in the workshops or anywhere else. “I have said many times that Communists, and those associated with them, are vassals of a foreign organisation, and their presence in this country is a menace because they belong to wreckers and not to builders,” said Mr Semple. “I would be sorry to think that returned soldiers* or any other loyal citizens, would ally themselves with such a group. In fact, I would be loath to believe it.”