A NEWSPAPER DREAM.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 21, 4 June 1908, Page 6

A NEWSPAPER DREAM.

, ■ If Sm Joseph Ward has not actually signed, his contract with the London Standard, ho might well consider thoadvisablencss of transferring his patronage to the Saturday Review., If we rightly apprehend a certain rather unintelligible statement issued yesterday by an anxious supporter of the Government, the great tiling is to get England to believe that there is nothing in all this talk of strikes and rumours of strikes and such-like trivialities. In that case the Review is clearly the paper for Sin Joseph's money. It has ideas that should be cncouragcd. In its issue of April 18, to hand yesterday, it has",an editorial upon the railway troubles in England, and it concludes its advocacy of the introduction'of compulsory arbitration with, these memorable sentences: 1 Tho 1 . workman must bo prevented from striking in defiance of tfhe Court. There is only ono - moans by which such a striko can bo prevented, aiid that is tho means, applied by the New Zealand law. The fountaiii-nead af strike pay must be dried-up. Tho Court must havo power' to fino the employer on the one hand, and on tho other to fine not only tho active striker, but tho .Union which provides- the sineivs of war. On tho whole, the system has worked admirably in Now Zealand. In thirteen years, since first, it came into force, there havo been only two strikes in the whole Dominion. Tho first lasted exactly, .four hours. Tho second was ended by compulsory arbitration, aftor a suspension, of work, which lasted in some pases for a fortnight. The New Zealand system has been much criticised. 'It is pointed out that the Court of Arbitration'has been very seldom called upon to not, We doubt if that fact' is very damaging. 'Is tl\o Dreadnought useless because it has never been in war? Strong armamonts are the surest guarantee of peace, and strong law courts of honest dealing; the usefulness of law is not to be measured by litigation. But the industrial peace of New. Zealand is clear and cogent; evidence of the vakte of compulsory arbitration, and that evidence we must accept."

It reads almost like a speech by tho Prime Minister. But even the Prime Minister would have baulked at the facts, and even at the phraseology. Only two strikes! Petone, Ngahauranga, Belfast, Pareora, Auckland, Denniston, Wanganui, Hastings, Green Island, Blackball, and Auckland again, and further mutterings in the air. On April 18, when the Saturday llevmv's article appeared, the Blackball strike had lasted nearly seven weeks. As for tho gravity with which the llcvicw maintains its case concerning the ".fact " that the Court of Arbitration —the poor Court that has for nearly a decade been neck-deep in arrears oi work—has " very seldom been called upon to act," thorc are no words adequate for comment. It is one of those things that criticism only spoils. What wo like best, howover, is the picturo of the Arbitration Court as a " Dreadnought," under steam and ready for instant and terrible action when the admiral says the word. It is such a noblo flight of imagination. " Strong law courts," too, and " honest dealing," and " industrial peace." Why docs the Saturday Review vex us witii these mockeries of our youthful dreams, this resurrection of our buried hopes? Will tho Prima Minister, . in his zeal to correct the errors of the British Preet,

ancl expose the slanders of disloyal chroniclers, break the sorrowful truth very gently to the Review ? Or will ho decide that ignorance and error of the right sort should be encouraged 1