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Hokitika Guardian, 5 March 1920, Page 2

Jin Massey is developing a. Pacific Ocean policy. 'Addressing a Wellington meeting on Wednesday he referred to the condition of the Pacific Islands and said it was important that they should be under control of the Anglo-Saxons. Many of the islands are already internationalised, and that control cannot be altered except by mutual agreement. It is important to Australia and New Zealand to see that the adja. cent islands do not. pass into the hands of countries, whoso policy is likely to

be a menace to the British offshoots. Mr Massey in his speech made rather an overt attack on Japan. Infereutially, he might have good grounds for this, ag having attended the great conference at Home he must have become possessed of a good deal of inside information. There is, however, a

similarity in his recent remarks on the Japanese menace and what he said in a political address at the Princess The. atre here in pre-war times when he made his visit - to Westland as Premier. On that occasion the notable portion of his speech was his warning about the Japanese. Whether he is taking up an old theme, or whether he has fresh reason for drawing attention to the matter is not clear, lnit presumably he has. Since Mr Massey spoke at Hokitika, the war has intervened, and jas the Premier says “Japan played I the game.” We know they convoyed ! the New Zealanders, and for that ser- . vice must lie grateful. The question i raised by, Mr Massey’ is a large interna. . tional subject which requires to be handled circumspectly, and more will be done diplomatically than by aggres- , sive public speeches causing distrust ‘ and difficulty.

In various places now there arc. signs that Labor leaders are taking a. more sane view of industrial unrest and the measures to be adopted to meet the alleged causes of the disturbance. This new view is finding expression in Britain and America j and as the Christchurch Press remarks, it is as signi. ficant as it is gratifying to find at least two prominent Australian Labour leaders advocating arbitration instead of the strike. We assume that they are prominent men in the Labour move-

ment because one had just been elected president.of the great Australian Wor. kers’ Union, while the other had been elected for the third time president of the Adelaide Trades and Labour Council. The former, in the course of his presidential address, pointed out tliafc a comparison of the wages and conditions obtained by the members of tho Union without a minute’s loss of time, with the record of other organisations, which had lost weeks, and sometimes months, “showed clearly’ that arbitration, with all its 'faults, gave as good results as direct action, if not better.” In the second case the speaker referred to the engineers’ strike as causing widespread unemployment and distress and showing callous indifference on the part of the strikers, who had refused to take opportunities for a settlement, to the misery suffered by thousands through their action. Both the seamen’s and engineer’s disputes, he said, resolved themselves into a clear-cut issue—direct action versus arbitration, an issue upon which ,the Labour movement in Australia had split. “Strikes and lock-outs,” he declared, “are bar. barons as they often inflict suffering upon the innocent,” and lie urged all to use their best endeavours to perfect the machinery of arbitration and conciliation. Wise words, indeed, but wo are afraid that the policy of direct action still commands thp support of a large number of Australian unionists.