The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1929.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 September 1929, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1929.

AUSTRALIA’S ARMED'PEACE. The Australians are a long-suffering people, or they would not put up with the outrageous excesses to which the Labour extremists have been allowed to run, at the bidding of Communist aliens who taae their orders from Moscow. The Sydney “Labour Daily” referred to the timber workers’ strike constantly as a “war” or a “battle,” and the strikers certainly did their best to give the situation a strongly military tone. The “Bulletin” has described how “scout patrols track workera to their homes and shock troops of ‘hashers, 1 conveyed in motor pars, lately waylay these men and kick their ' heads in.” Even a motor cycle division was organised to supplement the forces, its duty being to trace loads of timber from the yards to- their destination and then threaten or persuade the men on the contract to leave their job. Or course ,as the “Bulletin” remarked at the time, “every detail of this organisation is illegal and fraught with possibilities of violence.” But nobody in authority seems to interfere, though ail the arrangements are carried out as openly as if the city was preparing for a review of national militia. It is to be feared, says an exchange, that there was good ground for the warning that Mr W. M. Hughes addressed a few months ago to the Returned Soldiers’ Association, to the effect that thei rservice might be necessary soon in Australia to deal with “the enemy in the midst.” This remark is said to have been applauded most enthusiastically, and in view of what has happened in Sydney of late one can hardly wonder at it. .No doubt the abseno of the Prime Minister of New South M ales on a prolonged tour has made it difficult for the Ministers in charge to take action, as decisively as might have been desired. But when MiBavin got back to Sydney recently, one of his first public actions was to announce that the Government will no longer tolerate “mass picketing” or permit any attempt to intimidate or interfere w-'th “free” labour at the timber yards. What is termed “peaceful picketing” may be legal during a strike, but there can be no excuse for “mars picketing” of an industry in full working order under flic sunnosed protection of the Arbitration Court. “Mass picketing” lias been made an opportunity for mob violence on a large scale and for ferocious attacks upon volunteer workers and the police, and the mildness with which the situa-

tion has been handled hitherto seems to have encouraged the more irrosponible section of the workers to believe that there are no lengths to which they may not safely go. The p- sition has been described clearly and effectively by the “Bulletin,” which maintains vigorously that if the authorities shut their eyes to the eruth much longer the consequences of their easy-going lenisty may be most serious. It is not enough, tile “Bulletin” argues, “to get an occasional conviction against one ‘basher’ out of hundreds, and to hand.him a very mild sentence for the damage he has done. The duty of the law is to prevent the damage being done and to .disperse the mobs which hang around factory gates with no possible excuse .save that they intend violent interference with law-abiding workers.” If these mobs of potential rioters are not checked in time, there is sure to he serious trouble, and if the condition of affairs in Sydnfey is allowed to grow worse, it may soon be necessary to proclaim martial law in earnest to put down this incipient civil war.