STRIKERS IN PARLIAMENT.

Press, Issue 14828, 20 November 1913, Page 6

STRIKERS IN PARLIAMENT.

It is very characteristic of tho "Liberals" in the House that they should select the present time to obstruct* the busiuess of Parliament. They are anything but unwilling to let the strikers, who are opposing the Government's guardianship of the public's rights, know that the Opposition are ready to oppose in the same spirit tho Government's transaction of the public's Parliamentary business. There could be no more irrational stonewall than that which the 'Liberals" commenced on Tuesday, and none that could illustrate better the incapacity of the Opposition to understand its duty to Parliament and to the nation. Everybody is agreed that the second ballot must be repealed, and tho Opposition know that during next session Parliament will have its opportunity to find whatever substitute is agreed upon. They cannot hope, and perhaps they do not greatly desire, that tho public will be deceived into thinking that there is any good reason for opposing the repeal of the system which everyone knows is as bad a' -system as has ever been invented. In any event if they think that it would suit their plans to retain the system, or even if they thought th© system good and one that it would be a pity to repeal, their duty does not point in th© direction of blind and unreasoning obstruction. The -_suo is simple, and has no complications. The business of the Opposition is to record their protests as forcibly and clearly as they choose, and leave the responsibility to the Government. • What they are actually doing is a denial of tho right of Parliament to transact its businese. The principle for which they aro contending, namely, the right of a minority to make legislation by the majority impossible, is destructive of Parliamentary rule, and destructive, therefore, of the rights of a nation under representative government. By simply deciding to block* all business, any minority in tho House could, under tho Standing Orders, prevent the enactment of a single measure. Government would become impossible. We need hardly emphasise the similarity between the tactics of the "Liberals" inside the House and tho tactics of tho Red Feds, in the ports. Just as tho strikers, in order to assort their power, as a minority, to prevent the transaction of the country's commercial business, are endeavouring to bring it about that as thoy cannot and will not do the work, nobody else shall, so the Opposition are seeking by brute, force to prevent the" transaction of business in Parliament, and to establish the principle that as they cannot legislate, no other . party shall be freo to do so. In Both cases the opponents of tho Government and of tho community aro fighting in a cause which lacks any foundation in a good principle. In each case the policy of obstruction is designedly injurious to tho convenience and to the purse of the public. Tho Prime Minister, we trust, will display the same firmness in resisting the pretensions of tho Parliamentary strikers as he has shown in resisting the pretensions of tho industrial strikers, for firmness is the winning policy in each case, and in each case defeat and discredit must be the lot of tho obstructionists. The "Liberals" have amazingly misread public opinion if they are not aware that the country is wide awak© and watching with increasing disapproval the Parliamentary and extra-Parlia-mentary energies of the "Progressives," as they like to call themselves, in their war on the Government, which inside and outside Parliament is fighting for tho interests of tho nation.

Although the strikers, and some of their friends in tho "Liberal" party have maligned the special constables, and sought to mislead the public as to the duties of these public-spirited men, wo do not think many people misunderstand the facts. At the aamo time, Colonel Chaffey's letter, which we print on another page of this issue, deserves attention. Colonel Chaffey points out, what everyone ought to know and most people do know, that special constables duly enrolled are guardians of the puhlic and nothing else. It is their businefeß to suppress disorder by whomsoever attempted or committed, and it is nobody's fault but the strikers' own that tbe only disorder which has called for the "specials' " discharge of their duty haft been tho work of the Red Feds, and their friends and dupes, to talk, as those who are encouraging the war on the community have been talking, of "arming one side only to the dispute," is to talk consciously mischievous nonsense. The only "side" which has been armed, and which we trust will always be armed and efficient, is the side of law and order, the side of the public. Those "Liberal" journals and striko orators whose interests are injured by the arming of this side must put up with it as best them may. They will receive no sympathy from the public in their anxiety that the other side should be armed: the side of crime and disorder.

In a recent issue "Punch" had a very funny cartoon on th© Meadean situation. Preeident Wilson was pictured diking

I severely to a large and truculent Mexican. If he did not behave, the President said, he should havo to treat him as the Concert of Europe treated Turkey. "What does that mean?" asked the Mexican. "Why," said the President, "I shall have to—to—to go on wagging my finger at you." Some of our "Liberal" friends seem disposed to adopt this strong lino towards the strikers in Lytteiton who so inconsiderately made waste paper of the "Liberal" denunciations of the policy of making effective preparations for trouble similar to that which necessitated tho enrolment of special constables in Wellington and Auckland. One of their organs even goes the length of declaring, with great firmness, that "the strikers have not proved as good as their word." It is true that this violent finger-wagging is a little mitigated. Tho strikers aro a_>surcd that their offence has some extenuating circumstances, and it is suggested that they may after all turn out "not unworthy of the confidence" of the public. But it is something to find that the Federation's local ally found courage enough to wag its finger.

A cable message pnblished yesterday about the relations between Mr Oscar Hammerstein and Ms 6ingers seems to show that that famous operatic impresario's financial affairs aro not in a very healthy condition. Mr Hammerstein, who is now an international figure, has had a romantic career. Twenty years ago he was a showman in Harlem, New York. Ho launched out and built his first Manhattan Opera House, which, however, after two weeks became a music-hall. For some years he was in theatrical management of ono kind and another, until, iv 1906, greatly daring, he entered into competition with the venerable Metropolitan Opera House, the home of grand opera in New York. This enterprise appealed strongly to the public, and Mr Hammerstein became a celebrity. The engagement of fine singers, the introduction of new operas, and sound business methods, gave him a handsome profit, and bo was able to build an opera house in Philadelphia at a cost of over a million dollars. In 1910, however, ho startled the world by selling his interests in opera for two million dollars, and agreeing to withdraw entirely from the local field.

It was then then he made his now historic invasion of England, to give the London public opera, well produced, at more popular prices taan those ruling at Oovont Garden. Men of experience said that his fine new opera house would make an excellent musio-hall, and they were proved to be right. All Mr Hammerstein's skill and energy could not make the opera house pay. The public filled tho cheaper seats, but Society,' chained to Covent Garden by ties other than those of music, would not take his stalls and boxes. The theatre became a home of light entertainment, and Mr Hammerstein went back to America, still, so it was understood, a wealthy man. He might havo lived in comfortable retirement, but men of his. typo do not willingly retire.

One of the local strike orators declared yesterday that if the editors of the newspapers did not change thoir attitudo towards the strike tho strikers would club them. This wiL' fill tho editors, we are sure, with as much terror as it ought to, but it is quito certain that the young gentleman who issued the threat will ho as careful as most demagogues are to keep himself in a place of safety if it comes to breaking heads. Wo mention the matter, however, merely as an illustration of the hatred of the demagogues for freedom of speech and opinion when the freedom is claimed by their opponents. They demand, and a good-natured newspaper press gives them, great quantities of space for the ventilation of thoir opinions, but in their own publications they are careful to exclude any fact or opinion which is not their own. We thinkathis is very ungrateful. Decent wofkingmen will probably call it by a than ingratitude.

In all sincerity we can Join, very heartily in the expressions of regret and sympathy which have been called forth on all hands by the death of Mr George Laurenson, M.P. for Lytteiton. The tributes paid to his memory in Parliament yesterday recall the fact that while a vigorous and at times a bitter opponent in debate, ho never cherished resentment in private life. Thus it Was that although there were many sharp political conflicts between "The Press" and Mr Laurenson, his personal relations with the staff were of the most friendly nature. Although he was horn in Edinburgh, he was bred and educated in the Shetland Islands, and exhibited many of the characteristics of the hardy race inhabiting that storm-swept portion of the British Isles. Chief among these may be mentioned his tenacity of purpose and his love of reading. Unlike many of his Radical friends, he was a good Imperialist, and thero was genuine eloquence in somo of the speeches which he delivered on great national occasions, such as the gatherings in connexion with the Antarctic expeditions. There was moro than a touch of Norse poetry and imaginativeness in some of these speeches, and he was heard at his best on such occasions. His domestic relations were of the happiest, and the most tender and heartfolt sympathy will go out to the family who have been so sorely stricken.