Sir Arthur Guinness and the Jailed Strikers

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 88, 22 November 1912, Page 8

Sir Arthur Guinness and the Jailed Strikers

Th 3 fjiJowinc p.riiola in our "Special" of Satu?i!ay lest

THE SPEAKER AND HIS PROFES-

SIONS AND ACTS. COAL MINES ACT AMENDMENTS. Sir,—l hare been watching the parliamentary reports or' late to find out if our member, Sir Arthur Guinness, was making any endeavor to have the Waihi strikers released from jail. I have searched in vain. I cannot find where he has made any effort wliatsoever on their behalf. The noble knight informed our secretary by letter that he had had an interview with Mr. Massey, and there the matter rests. The new amendments to the Coalmines Act seem to be interesting him, for he has asked our union to suggest something A great statesman is Sir Arthur 1 After representing a coalmining constituency for 30 years, he ie asking for a suggestion. What is he

going to do with it ? Put it beside the rest we have given him? Our old Trades and Labor Council made many suggestions to him lor the amending of t'he Coal-mines Act; surely he cannot have forgotten that they suggested to him that 150 cubic feet of air per minute was necessary for each man working in a mine, and that amount was to sweep on undiininished to each working-place where a man was employed. Let him add that suggestion to the Coal-mines Act, and it will help to redeem him after 30 years of failure. At the general election Sir Arthur said he was a Labor member, and was returned to support the Ward Government. That party is now in the wilderness, and the present Government has proved to be the most tyrannical and conservative in the know:i history of New Zealand—and our worthy member is its Speaker. If he is a Labor member, where is his place? Not in the Speaker's chair, but on tlhe floor of the House, fighting Massey and his bludgers, who are leg-ironing our comrades for fighting for what they deem is their sacred right—Freedom and Justice. It is time the electors in the Grey learned the true position of Guinness. By vacatirfg the Speaker's chair he would reduce t'he Government majority by two and might help in some way to turn out of power the blood-sucking scabmongers. But Sir Arthur is a very poor man, and I don't think he would like to lose his eight hundred pounds per four months. At the next election we will alter things for him, and make the Speaker's room like heaven— "there will be no (k)night there."—Yours, etc., ; Blackball. LONG DRILL.