PHASES OF THE STRIKE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1556, 27 September 1912, Page 6

PHASES OF THE STRIKE.

—» When the Waihi trouble is over, the Federation of Labour will hardly have more reason to feel sorry than the Parliamentary Opposition and the spokesmen of the United Labour party. Last week Messes. Poland, Payne, M'Kenzie, Eobektsojj, and Veitch did their best, by condemning the Government's dispatch of police to protcct those Waihi citizens who were proved to have been subjected to molestation and terrorism by the strikers in an endeavour to help the Federation of Labour in its war against libcr.ty and order. There is much significance in the fact that the Oppositionist leaders—including Sir Joseph Ward, Mr. Russell, Mn. Wirry, Mn. WilFOitD, and all the others—have carefully refrained from saying a word in support of the Government's action or in reproof of the "wreckers" out of whom they hope some day to form some sort of a parly. In one of his essays Stevenson says that a, man may conic out of a' mom a liar and a false friend without having opened his mouth. The Opposition leaders and the bulk of the Oppositionist press are in this way - blameworthy for neglecting their , plain duty to the State. They have adopted—for various bad reasons— precisely that attitude which Mr. Bpence, (lie president of the Australian Workers' Union, recommended a couple of years ago when he said ■ that if a true-blue saw a free worker ; bring murdered he should shut his eyes, and pass by. 1 On Wednesday the friends nf (be . Federation made another demoabtra

tion in tho House, They were assisted this time by just the men whom we expected ■would assist them: Messrs. Laurenson and Isitt. To the member for Christchurch North the attempt of Mr. Semple's organisation to terrorise innocent and lawabiding unionists is a natural and proper enough incident in "a struggle fomented and engendered by Capital." Whatever excuses may be advanced on Mr. Isitt's behalf—his inexperience and irresponsibility— will not serve the case of the member Lyttplton, who is actually "well satisfied" with the wretched trouble that has come to Waihi, and ready to condemn the police system because it happens to be Mr. Massey who is in charge of the nation. Mil. Laurevj son may not endorse, but shoiikl read with interest, tempered with the envy of a rival craftsman, Mr. SejiI'Le's description of the police as "the lowest, dirtiest creatures on the face of God's earth." Most people, being well aware of the fact that the Government has the bulk of the nation at its back in its defcnce of liberty and order in Waihi, will be surprised that the Opposition leadcra shm.ld be so foolish as not to sup;x)i t Ihe Government. They cannot evade responsibility for the actions and words of their followers excepting by disowning them; and thev'bave not disowned them. The leaders of the United Labour party are in the samo case. When, a little while back, they professed a violent hostility to the aims and methods of tho Federation, they did not foresee that the Federation was to put their siiwit-j. to a severe public test. The test has been applied, and Mr. Sejifle is finding the spokesmen of the party useful and willing aides. The rcsujfc will be as bad for that party as it will be for the Opposition; and we are sorry_ that it should be so, because it is unfair and undesirable that the bulk of the workingmen of Jycw Zealand ; should, through the folly of their leaders, come to on associated in the public mind with Federation principles.