The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is in corporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1931. ACTION APPROVED.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 July 1931, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is in corporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1931. ACTION APPROVED.

According to particulars given., in a press report, tne action or the Government as revealed by the Prime Minister's statement on the deadlock at Westport, will be approved generally as a very proper stand to take to assert constitutional rights. It appears that Mr Holland, the Leader ot the Labour Party, himself the member for the district concerned, attacked the Government for dismissing harbour staff men at Westport. The Prime Minister’s answer was .frankness itself. Mr Forbes saidl the Watersiders had refused to handle the coal from two mines worked on tribute adjacent to Westport. It is understood this discrimination was at the behest of the Labour headquarters in Wellington, which had been appealed to by the Miners Unions affected in Buller. The Labour method was to block the export of the coal by- instructing the waterside workers at the port not to load the commodity. These instructions have been acted upon, and in the meantime all coal trucks and bins have been filfed, and with no place to store any more coal produced, the miners have been idled, and the stoppage of the loading operations has had a boomerang effect* hardly expected by those who fired the first shot. Since then the harbour and shipping is at a standstill, and more workmen are idled. Mr Forbes stated plainly and firmly that “no self respected Government coultll allow an ultimatum of the kind given to pass.” Actually there was no dispute, and the Labour authorities just attempted to use the position to shit its own ends by blocking industry and enterprise when not directed to meet the wishes of organised unionism. Mr Forbes went further in bis nhun declaration of the Government policy. He said to Mi Holland that if the member of Buller thought the Government was to be uaed by the Unions a,s desired; Mr Holland had never made a greater mistake. Mr Forbes considered the * dictation from the Wellington Labour headquarters a challenge to constitutional Government, and he was not going to he a party to holding up the country at the will of a Labour organisation. Mr Forbes further' made it plain that the issue had to settled at Westport. It was the workmen there under irresponsible dictation which held up the country, and “we cannot allow,” said Air -Forbes, “that to

happen in a free country.” He added further in reply to Mr Holland, that there was nothing to negotiate about. There- was no question of wages nor a dispute occasioning a strike, and the Government accepted the Labour organisation challenge and would see that the coal was loaded according to custom. Westport appears to havebrought a. serious position upon itself, through the irresponsible leadership directed from Wellington, but it will be agreed that the Prime Minister is right in the public interests to protect the rights of public property and the free agency of workmen outside labour unionism. At a. time when there is so much want and distress through lack of work, it is not creditable to see crowds, of idle men about Westport and the Buller district, when there is work to do, yet it calltiot b© attempted because of the' crass stupidity of Labour headquarters who seek to contra! the industrial policy of the country with only one thought—the building up and strengthening of a militant Labour organisation which has no thought for the public weal,