MINISTER'S IDEA OF CRISIS

Chronicle (Levin), 12 May 1947, Page 3

MINISTER'S IDEA OF CRISIS

LET US NOT BE PANICKED, SAYS MR. SKINNER WELLINGTON, May 10. ' ' Tliere is said to be an industrial crisis iu New Zealand today./Miat may be, but i would like to point out that 90 per cent. of any crisis e.xists in the uiinds of the people themselves, and it takes a Jot more than newspaper headlines aud editorials to constitute a real crisis," said the Minister of Rehabilitation (Mr. Skinner) in an 'address to the New Zealand Federation of Cooperatives today. He thought that what was being experienced today was just another phase'in the old unnecessary and wasteful struggle between Labour and Capital. " "For too long now employers and employees, farmers 1 and industrial worke'rs, professional men and wageearners, have thought and spoken and acted as separate self-interested sections, eacli aloof froin the others, ;each on the defensive i^gainSb the athersy and eacli seeking its own' aclvaAtage above all other interests," he said, "It is a suicidal; struggle and it has to stop — in the national field-, as in the international. ' ' The so-calied crisis today, he continued, was nothing new and the people who were causing it had alwayu been with us, he said. "I make jt clear that I r0fef to disrupters oniall sides — for no faction has a monopoly of disruptive forces — aud we must take care not to run from oue enemy into the arms of anotlier. There are those who would seize the present opportunity to foment something like panic for their own purposes, and I *am afraid theer are people like that on both sides of the fence. We must constantly be on our guard, not only against disruption in our community from any oue side, but also against exploitation by one side, or the other, of what may hastily be called a disruption." New Zealand did not want any heresy hunts, whether of so-called P'ascists or Communists. He did not like either, and would do all he could to stop them achieving any power, but he did not believe in helping them, or 'any other apostle of violence or "disruption, to achieve prominence through martyu'dom. "f do not pretend that all is wel! in our country or that there is no room for improvement socially or industrially," he said. "There is a lot to be done, and we have only just started but let us not be panicked, either by so-called 'militant' unions, or by. those who Jiate and fear unionism. Let us not, in our natural symimthy for a stricken and forsaken Wanganella, be trapped into rating Wanganellas above , liuman values, and as of greater importance than workers' conditions and needs, which have been fought for ' down the years. But on the other 1 hand let us not, as workers, seelc a. ' fleeting aud purely sectional profit from the misfortunes of our WangaL nellas, instead of. building our social ' structure on a sure and permanent f oundation. ' ' Mr. Skinner said he saw no firmer r or finer foundatihn on which to build : than the co-operative principle. He - wanted to see fhe co-operative prin- ; ciple extended, not only into sliops, but , also into factories and publie utilities , generally.