PRIVILEGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 218, 13 September 1940, Page 6

PRIVILEGE.

Privileges, of birth, or wealth, or age, or the privileges gained oy organisation—what are these worth in England to-day? If the Nazi blitzkrieg were to succeed, all privileges would speedily disappear, and never be restored. Meanwhile, they are in suspense. Men and women are working, without stint, for national preservation. Is it too much to expect that at this time,'in this country so luckily removed from, and nevertheless so dependent upon the outcome of, the struggle now raging, no man and no body of men should be deliberately refraining from production ? Some hundreds of miners in South Auckland were idle yesterday, after being idle on three days last week, and again on Monday. The reason is described as a dispnte over one man's wages claim. It seems to have become the privilege of coal miners to act in this manner. Let us suppose that this dispute, apparently so trivial, involves a cherished principle. It may be so, for hundreds of men have forgone several days' pay to uphold it. But could not the dispute have been settled in another way, without all these men suspending production? The answer is that it could, for there is ample legal machinery for the purpose. There is als>o the fact, thouglf it seems almost useless to mention it, that this suspension of work is a clear breach of the strike and lock-out emergency regulations. These happenings, and the Government's failure to prevent them, are I doing far more harm in NeAV Zealand than can be gauged by computing the quantity of coal not produced. They are spreading a belief that small minorities here and there in the population are not only indifferent to the outcome of the war, but are privileged to break the law with impunity.