The Dominion. THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1908. MINISTERS AND STRIKERS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 209, 28 May 1908, Page 6

The Dominion. THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1908. MINISTERS AND STRIKERS.

The public were furnished yesterday .with statements from three Ministers upon a ciuestipn that will engage the anxiety • of the Government lor a very long time to come; ' j)ii. Finclay ox? plained that lib misrpported by the Press Association 'in fepmg mado to forer cast that grotesque proposal that' a striker should be debarred from pmployr ment until he pays the fine for striking. At liltham Sir Joseph Ward soared gs usual : into the rosy clouds of his perfect contentment with everything, lie dcclareii fhht " tp imprison the strikers would be to make them heroes," and he cited,' as a strong argument against imprisoning .obdurately contemptuous and rebellious law-breakers, the case of the British suffragettes, who "were met on coming out of prison by the best in' thp lan.d, and looked liko carrying their point." iS£h.. Millar saiii that"" the legal course in dealing with tjie late' Auckland tramway- trouble "—lipiy he shuns tjie word " striko will be fpllpwcd by the Government," and that during the coming .session the Government will reV introduce last year's amending Artitrsh tion Bill yritj) certain unspecified tions. • The Minister for L'abour may rply upon it that the Government is being watched/very carefully just npw, and tho-t it is no Ipnger ppssilalo tp hoodwink the public into believing that " tjie legal course " is the institution of such roundabout; proceedings as will fix the penalty for striking at a little less than half a, sovereign a head, which the men major may not pay, just as they choose to be humorously gracious or strictly business like, The Attorney-General talks of "exacting by every reasonable civil process that exists, or that can be' devised, the full payment of the fine ordered by the 'Court," and the Premier " maintains," in his bpld way, that " the machinery fpr cpllecting the fines should b'o made as perfect as possible." One requires, we should say, to be a trades unionist to fully appreciate these exquisite jokes. If we are to deduce from these statements the extent' of the projected amendments of the Act, the urgency of which the Government has been forced to admit at last, we may say at once that the' Government is wasting its time in tinkering with tha Act at allr, Whan :men ,aro nnfc deterred from striking by an Act .that

certainly provides imprisonment as a last lino of defence against lawlessness, they are not likely to fear a money penalty, and they will simply smile at the mouse of a microscopic fine which the labouring mountain of tho Arbitration Act may bring forth under the nursing of a Circumlocution Office. It x seems hardly worth while wasting so much profound thought and brilliant draftsmanship as are promised by the Premier arid Dr. Findlay on a new way of doing nothing effective to make the trades-unionists respect the law—hardly worth while fashioning a new sword to hang up and leave to rust while the old" feather-duster of the circuitous Blackball procedure is made to do further duty*. Of a piece with the Government's general attitude is" the Premier's plea that to imprison strikers—to take, that is, the only effective steps to prevent strikeswill defeat its object and turn " the best in the land," presumably including the Ministry, into" admirers of the heroes who repudiate the contracts that they are bound to obey in honour as well as in law. Mb. Birrell used thp same argument in England when he was entreated to prosecute the notorious Mr. Ginneli,' of " cattle-driving " fame, but Mr. Ginnell somehow . got himself imprisoned, and nobody thought him a hero. There conies a point, when if imprisoning a striker gratifies the striker, he must be gratified, or higher interests wj)l suffer. In effect, the Premier's statement, if it is correct, 'means that the Arbitration Act is based nppn an unsound principle. The basic principle of the Act is ' its joqwey to make striking a rpajly penal offence. If that principle is 'wrong, tho Act is wrong. Last year the Gpvernment was al| fpr jnaking a strike an expensive luxury for the individual striker," Withojit further stultifying itself, it cannot refrain now frpm following in the Auckland case tlfe pourse of individual prosecution that it then adopted. Buteven that yill not settle a question that grp\ys more clearly a very grave one. As time passes, and the Government pal-' tera here, and evades there, the belief is growing that- tho Act is a failure, that its sudden improvisation put of an untested theory \yas unsound at root, apd that no amount pf tinkering with it will make jt other than a ong-'sided and iin T just interference'with industry, i. When this has beepme clear thr.qugn Labour's revolt iu good times, what arc we to e'xpeet when tjie tjrpe of ajJversity' conies 1 " If they do thoso' things in a grppn tree,' what shall bp done in the dry?"