BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Tuesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 1948 TOLERANCE IN INDUSTRY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 34, 2 April 1948, Page 4

BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Tuesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 1948 TOLERANCE IN INDUSTRY

There is ample meat for the thoughtful in the address of the president, Mr R. Riddell, to the annual meeting of the local branch of the Labour Party. He deplored the continual interruption in the despatch overseas of this country’s primary produce, and said the resultant disputes were not conducted in a spirit of tolerance by either party. There is a lot in what he says. The plea for tolerance and understanding between the employers and employed has been made by this paper before, and it does not hesitate to back up Mr Riddell on this occasion. A little more tolerance for the other fellow’s point of view would solve a lot of problems, private, national and international.

. His concern at the interruption of food shipments will be echojed by every right-thinking citizen. It must be realised that a hungry Europe is a potential powder-keg, a breeding ground for the hatred, resentment, and the desperate desire of the suffering and frustrated to kick someone that leads to wars and revolutions. It must be realised that a hungry Britain cannot be a strong Britain. The family man over there must be finding little consolation in being told what a fine chap he is and how proud he should be of the fact that Britons can “take it.” Not when he sees his young wife ageing and haggard with worry, restrictions and frustrations, and his children under-nourished. A Briton “browned off” with an Empire that will not or cannot deliver the essentials of life to her people, though she possesses the richest territories on earth, is sooner or later going to lose the fine polish off his patriotism. Will his native conservatism then be proof against the subtle whispering campaign of the Communist, who points out there is little a hungry family can lose and claims there is a brand-new Utopia to gain.

We in this country spend a lot of rhetoric abusing, Communism. But a lot of us allow ourselves to take part in actions and policies that breed the very thing we denounce. Mr Biddell is right when he says industrial negotiations lack the spirit of tolerance. That spirit is lacking also in our national politics and (this applies to the Commonwealth and ourselves as part of it) in our international dealings. Internationally, the small voice of a little country like New Zealand cannot be expected to carry much weight, but, backed by the team spirit and constructivelydirected goodwill of a nation, however small, it could be heard. But however loudly our voice proclaims our Christian goodwill to all nations, unless we make an all-out drive to deliver the goods all our fine talking will be just “noises off” the stage of present-day grim reality.