CHARGE OF BLUFF

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 32, 2 November 1942, Page 6

CHARGE OF BLUFF

Ministers’ Handling Of

Coal Strike STATE OF FUEL STOCKS It was most Improper for Ministers of the Crown to bluff in their conduct of public affairs, said Dr. O. C. Mazengarb, in commenting on the Waikato coal strike at a meeting of National Barty supporters in the Wellington Central electorate on Friday night. “The domestic Cabinet must have known what coal stocks there were, and with that knowledge they tried to bluff and bully the then,” he said. “We have had too much bluffing from Cabinet Ministers in recent years. This time the miners called their bluff, and the Government had to submit to men who, according to' Mr. 'Webb, were playing the part that Hitler and Tojo would desire to see them play.” Though a strike of workmen was a breach of the law, experience had shown that strikes could not always be prevented. They were often generated by a real sene’e of grievance. But the Waikato strike was entirely without merit, and it was badly handled by the Ministers, who used provocative and insulting language to the men. If there were justification for even half the terrible things which Messrs. Welib, Semple and Sullivan had said about the strikers, the Government had no' excuse for not enforcing the law against them. After it wa<? all over and the Government had capitulated to the strikers, the people were told that stocks of coal on hand were so short that if tlie Government had not cancelled the decision of the Court, the dairy factories and freezing works would have been out of action in a few weeks and the railways would not have been able to transport troops to meet an invasion. If that were the position and the miners knew it. one month’s imprisonment was not the appropriate penalty. “But frankly,” said the speaker, “I don’t believe that the position of our coal stocks was as bad as tlie Ministers are now trying to make out. That is just a poor excuse for failing to enforce the law. I prefer to believe that those miners were not so devoid of patriotism that they would do the work of n Jupanece submarine.”