THE GOVERNMENT'S "HUSH HUSH" POLICY.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 65, 9 December 1937, Page 4

THE GOVERNMENT'S "HUSH HUSH" POLICY.

To-day 's report of yesterday's parliamentary diseussion on tlie Auckland waterside-strike will be widely read with a great dfeal of interest. The first tliing tliat will be noted, and a fea?are of outstanding significance, will doubtless be the eagerness and persistence with which ministerial spokesmen sougbt to have it stifled under the technical rules of procedure. This was, of course, quite in accord with the frequent recourse which during the Whole session the Prime Minister has taken to the "gag" when debates have begun to run rather hotly against the Government. However, the Spe.aker, with admirable firmness, held tliat the subject was a proper one for urgent consideration hy the House and thus the Governiuent's manifest intention of shelving it out of sight, in the hope that it would die a nautral death ere Parliament reassembles next year, was defeated, It will be pretty generally agreed that the time is long past when trade union movements of this kind should be seriously tackled by the Government with a view to preventing their so frequent recurrence — so frequent, indeed, as to have become almost a normal condition of the.country's industrial life, a few more than one a'week for the first nine months of this year, for instance. They are not, of course, all as serious in their possible consequences as the Auckland sfrike that has just been "settled," though thanks to nothing in the way of Government action. None the less, their cumulative effect is felt throughout hoth the business and the social life of the country, while, quite naturally each one that passes without some deterrent official action being taken provides encouragement for others to do likewise. To snclx a pass has it come that with a very large proportion of the unions the strike, or something equivalent to it, is the first recourse whenever any ne# gnwYvance is advanced or new "demand" made. This is surely a very anomalons condition of affairs under a Labour Government whose first, perhaps only real, care is for the well-being of the mannal workers, and which has given full and convincing evidence of this in both its legislation and its administration, regardless altogether as to how others may fare nnder them. .This being the case, why is it we find that, under Labour rule, these unruly and costly manifestations of trade union p.ower are continually increasing in nnmber without the slightest attempt being made to check them, in fact in not a few cases with ineentive, sometimes tacit and sometimes explicit, given for their repetition ? In the present Auckland instance, so far as any available information goes, there seems to have been no doubt as to tbe originating f anlt lying with the men who f ailed to turn np for the work they liad undertaken to do. Of that the Minister concerned would appear to have made practical admission yesterday. And yet, in the face of the very grave dislocation of the aetivities of one of onr biggest ports, necessarily extending also to others, the Government was obvionsly prepared to "let things slide" in the hope that any agitation raised would gradually hush itself np, And that is probably what would have happened had the Hbn. the Minister of Marine (Mr. Fraser) and his colleagues not met with adverse rulings from the Speaker when they sprang to their feet with the object of bnrking parliamentary diseussion. .Thanks to that ruling, and most certainly not to the Government or any of its members, the matter was given opportunity for some very much needed pnblic ventilation. As a result the Government has been forced to make a belated and obviously reluetant confession that it is "time something was done about it," but as to the form which that' something should take no indieation is given. All we get are some pious expressions of regret that sueh things should happen in a country intelligent enongh to place a Labour Government in power, an appeal for more cordial co-operation between employers and unions and for them to "play the game," and a promise' by the Prime Minister not to "run away" from the Government 's responsibilities. LWe have had quite a plenty of this kind of soothing syrup before — buckets and barrels of it, but with no curative treatment to follow. And it will be the same in this case unless a strong and sustained expression of ' publie opinion forces the hands of a Government that seems to; stand iri abject awe of the, big unions. F, It may be worth while to draw attention t 0 what the . president of the Auckland LWatersiders' Union, Mr. Solomon, had to say abont the settlement of the strike and especially his concluding words: "The rcsult cannot be called a victory for the employers, because the settlement is equally satisfactory to us." In those few words we have the whole spirit and sentiment of this section of trade-unionism snmmed up — "fight the employers." And that is the type of trade-unionism whicK under the present Government is treated with greatest deference and is getting the greatest encouragement. x