Keep em Jailed

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 87, 8 November 1912, Page 5

Keep em Jailed

A LOVELY COMBINATION.

" WAIHI WILL PROVE A

BOOMERANG."

Parliament on Thursday afternoon divided on more or less party lines and decided that the imprisoned Waihi strikers can rot in jail until they (the miners) bend the knee to the Golden Calf and promise not to be bad boys. The debate arose over a petition from Timaru praying for the release of the jailed Waihi strikers, and the Public Petitions Committee had no recommendation to make, and on a motion that the report be referred back for further consideration members opened their oratorical floodgates. The result showed that the Government is notgoing to release the strikers, and the Hon. A. L. Herdman sought, but, in "Truth's" humblo "opinion, signally failed, to prpve that there are just reasons why the Government should not exercise its power and give freedom to a large number of men who have been "punished" because they dared \to deny the right of a Fat gold-mining concern to break up their union and impose harsh conditions of labor upon them.

There is ample justification for saying that the pig-headedness of the Massey Government in refusing to release these miners is not so much due to the Government's vaunted policy of upholding "law and order" as it is to something else. The Massey Government wishes to r pose as a "strong" Government, and it is testing its strength on the Waihi miners. It seems to be between the devil of Capitalism and the deep blue sea of Industrialism. To release the strikers would be an admission of weakness to Fat, and is the power of propulsion of the Massey ship of State, Labor has to be scarified and the risk run of Labor revolting at the ballotbox. It is most unfortunate for Massey, but fortunate for true Laborites (not the "useful people" sort of Laborite, for whom golf-links are to be established on the town belt), that the methods of jailing have been employed. The Massey Government favors jail as a means of checking industrial strife. Liberal "rats" support Ahe Massey Government, and, generally, the "Useful Sort of People" of Labor regard the Waihi miners as being beyond the pale of respectability. What a glorious outlook for the worker! Fancy a combination of capitalistic Conservatives, Liberal "Scabs" and "Useful People" generally rejoicing at workers being kept in jail. AVaihi will prove a boomerang for somebody—perhaps tho United Labor Party, which could have seized on the imprisonment of the Waihi miners as the strongest argu-, ment 'for pulling, down the plutocratic party in power at present. When we consider the above-mentioned lovely, yet unholy, combination, "Truth" is inclined to think that the Waihi miners and their wives when they call out "scab" are far too moderate.—■ "Truth," November 2.