"PLAYING THE GAME"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 52, 24 November 1937, Page 4

"PLAYING THE GAME"

There is sometMng almost pathetic about the appeal published on another page to-day — which the Minister of Lahour has addressed to employers and employees alike to "play the game." "I want," says Mr. Armstrong, "to mahe a f inal appeal to employers to play the game with their employees and, on the other hand, I want to appeal to the workers to play the game with their employers." This pretty little phrase about playlng the game has a nlee sporty sonnd about it that is no doubt hoped to touch a sport-loving people. At the same time, however, its invoeation with regard to wage-payers jmd wage-earners in this conntry comes rather sti angely f i om a member of a Government which ever since its attainment of office has done almost evp.rything possible to set the two classes at variance and at arm's-length to one another. . [What with compulsory unionism made almost universal among employees and the institution of a Eederation of Labour that is to control all unionists, to say nothing of minor movements in a like direction, no intelligent onlooker can see anything bnt an intention to array labour in a solid and almost necessarily hostile phalans against the employers. Under conditions such as these the pleasant-sounding appeal for them to play the game with one another takes on rather an empty tone. ;What has Mr. Armstrong himself or any of his ministerial colleagues done to help to the institution of more friendly and cordial relations as between employers and employees? As a matter of fact, speaking in general terms, they were probably never in this country further apart than they are at this moment, and for that the present Government is undoubtedly very Largely responsible. It was seemingly in connection with the inauguration of the new Arbitration Court that the Minister was making his appeal, and possibly some reassurance for the future is to be gathered from his very decided declaration in favour of New Zealand's industrial arbitration system. This is an entirely different note from that which he struck at the time of the "stay-in" strike staged by Auckland freezing workers early in the. year. Then he was reported as saying, with reference to his own long career as a trade-union secretary, that "none of the unions he served in this capacity ever went before the Coneiliation Council or the Arbitration Court, always believing he could do better independently of these tribunals," the obvious suggestion being that the Auckland unions would do well follow that example. However, Mr. Armstrong now tells us that what he saw and heard during his long tour abroad has made him "more than ever in love" with the New Zealand plan of arbitration. If the Minister is really sincere in this new declaration of faith in the Arbitration Court, then it may well be said that the few paltry thousands his trip cost have been well spent in bringing about so marked a conversion. The genuineness of that conversion will, however, be aeeepted by the public only if Mr. Armstrong gives proof of it by lending much more vigorous support than he has hitherto done to the findings of the Court and to enforcing their bbservance. Every game has its rales, but if the referee — in this case Mr. Armstrong himself, self-constituted — allows one side to break the rules at will in order to gain advantage, then there can be no "playing the game" in the sense the Minister seeks to give the idiom. He has enlisted an army of well-paid inspectors — probably hundreds of them — who are extremely zealous in keeping employers up to the mark, with prosecutions entered for the most trifling breaehes of the rules of the. game, until even the magistrac^- condemn them as "frivolous." Bnt do we ever hear of any action taken against unionists for their violation of the rules, though week in and week out we have strikes and hold-ups that are definite and costly offences not only against employers but against the community as ' a whole? .What is the use of Mr. Armstrong, with hand on heart and eyes raised to heaven, preaching the gospel of arbitration and imploring employers and employees to "play the game," while this sort of thing is allowed to go on incessantly without any attempt to check it and without anything even in the way of eff ective remonstrance or rebuke ? Does it not lend strength to the growing conviction that the Government is desperately afraid of the "militant" unions, though at the same. time blindly giving its support to the creation of a universal federation of unions that will undoubtedly be ruled ' by these same militants? These are some few questions which the public may very well invite the Minister to answer. What is really wanted is that Mr. Armstrong himself should, from . his plaee of authority, "play the game" very much more impartially than he has hitherto done.