GAOL FOR STRIKERS SUGGESTED BY A NATIONALIST M. P.

Grey River Argus, 12 April 1948, Page 3

GAOL FOR STRIKERS SUGGESTED BY A NATIONALIST M. P.

WELLINGTON, April 9 Mr J. R. Marshall, M.P. for Mount Victoria, in an address at Roseneath, said the new amendment to the Strikes and Lockout Emergency Regulations was bad politics and bad law. He said: “Before this amendment anyone instigating a strike or committing any other offence under the regulations could be fined, and if the fine was not paid he could be imprisoned. In the new amendment the Government has apparently once again given way to pressure and softened down the penalties for these favoured law-breakers so that the lines are now enforceable not in the ordinary way, but merely as a debt. Anyone else who is convicted and fined for other offences pays up or suffers the consequences of ordinary law. “This new concession is, in its obvious intention and effort, another case of privileged treatment for the Government’s own supporters. To do this the Government has strained and,' in my opinion, exceeded the powers Which it now has to amend the emergency regulations “The Emergency Regulations Coniinuance Act, 1947, removes the power to make emergency regulations, and gives very-limited power to amend the existing emergency regulations, and then only for the purpose of giving full effect to the intent and purpose of those regulations. The amendment toning down the enforcement of penalties cannot be said to give full effect to the regulations, and would appear to be invalid. It is bad law as well as bad politics. “The Gilnertian situation now arises that since it is to the advantage of the parties affected, no one is likely to move to test the validity’ of the regulations in court. It is