BLACKBALL DISPUTE

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2228, 18 January 1921, Page 2

BLACKBALL DISPUTE

Commenting on the above dispute, yesterday's Dominion says:—

“That the dispute at the Blackball mine provides not the slightest justification for a national hold-up in the mining industry is made doubly dear by the report of the Under-Secretary for Mines. A miner swore at a mine deputy and was dismissed, but alleges that lie spoke under provocation, declaring that the "deputy first swore at him. The "Under-Secret ary says he finds it impossible to come to definite conclusion as to the .side' oil which (he blame lies. He points out that it is an offence against the law for a miner to use threatening or abusive language to a mine official, also vice versa for a mine official l:o use it to a miner. Neither party in this case —which is to be made the ground for a Dominion-wide disloca- • * lion ol* industry —Ims thought it worth white to proceed with-the obvious remedy of it -prosecution in a Magistrate’s Court. The mimy, moreover, is still working af~ thimine as a check weighmayi his wages for* this work being paid by the union. Mr Arbuckle asked for the Under-Secretary's report to clinch tin; matter. The report being published, the public finds the whole-/ eon diet to be a twopenny halfpenny storm in a teacup, that with any tact and forbearance would have been settled, directly between the local union and the mine, manage- ' ment, or Jailing agreement should have been referred to a magistrate under the bad language clauses of the Mines Acts. Until that is done nobody can "know whether the miner or the mine deputy was to blame, bill everybody can see that the Miners' Federation is putting itself hopelessly in the wrong.”