The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 1917. THE BURNING COAL QUESTION.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 2 May 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 1917. THE BURNING COAL QUESTION.

("With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News).

The unrest among coalminers

seems to have subsided, and a stage reached when all parties can view differences in a normal perspective. The strike tever has not yet entirely left the men; intermittent outbreaks still occasionally occur. The miners of th<r Paparoa pits have again been out; this time it is because they cannot get any readjustment of an agreement, for timbering the mines that was entered into three years ago. It is a most noteworthy fact that Sir James Allen invariably makes some statement after these extreme acts are taken about what was to happen if they had not occurred. The Paparoa cas'e is no exception in this respect; after the men have struck against the three-year-old agreement he hastens to the telegraph wires to say this •grievance was to have been discussed

at a„ conference of owners and miners on May 10th. Why could he not have told the men and impressed them with the fact before the miike took place? Complaints against the old timbering

agreem -.nx. are not those of a moment, they have been heard i'cr months. When coalminers break the law let (hem be punished according to the magnitude and heinotisness of their foolish, ill advised acts, but let us not blind ourselves to what is right and just, for that must only fan the flame of further lawlessness. The telegrams daily coming from the Actingpremier, with uncompromising, unnecessary repetition, stating that abso-

lutely no concessions will be made to miners to enable them to get to and from their work is nothing more than rubbing an old sore. Why cannot the men be met and their side of the question heard, so that a comprehensive and exhaustive agreement may be arrived at? No, it is a hand-to-mouth, piecemeal attitude the Minister is following, whether from design or incapacity for organisation is not quite apparent. What body of workmen is there in the country that is satisfied to work for the wages they received three years ago? The desire of the miners to have such an agreement reconsidered seems unanswerably just, then why let them go out on strike in order to get a hearing? The fact is the Acting-Premier is tactless, and he meets the men's case with a militancy that cannot fail to cause fur-

ther irritation. To neglect the voice of the men in such cases is to compound the result. Let us unhesitatingly punish the men when they become openly rebellious and lawless, but above all let us be consistent and listen to complaints that have every appearance of being just; to be otherwise is to fail in the management of public business. We do think that the Minister should not have spared himself in threshing this coal difficulty out to the last wisp; it is something that is owing to the thousands of poor people whose sufferings are already approaching the acute stage, and to the held-up industries by which the masses have to be fed and the ordinary life of the people made possible. It should not be difficult to discriminate between acts that require to be repressed with firmness and determination, and those that have a claim to reasonable manly consideration.

INDUSTRIAL TERRORISM

Not only coalminers but other sections of labour in New Zealand have been cozened and cajoled into ex-

tremely foolish acts by men of the very worst type who have been sent over from Australia for the purpose by an organisation of the Empire's enemies. These unpunished outlaws have held up lurid word pictures of what labour is doing over there in the way of law-breaking, but they are careful to keep from view the harvest of retribution they have to reap as a consequence. As showing what follows utter disregard for law and agreements made thereunder we may quote from a recent Australian Supreme Court case. Butchers refused to allow shifts to be altered to the extent of half-an-hour to enable a better distribution of meat, and they launched upon a campaign of terrorisationto gain their end. The presiding judge in giving his decision, said: "If the butcher who keeps his shop open after 5 p.m. is to be ruined, what about the Judge who authorised him

to keep open after 5 p.m.? It would be perfectly consistent with what has been done here that tradesmen should be ordered, under penalty of a strike, to boycott Mr. Justice Edmunds. If it could be done, who is to say it would not be done? Is it any worse to starve a Judge than to ruin a slaughterman? Where the members of a community are not prepared to fight for their rights they may count with J perfect confidence on finding them ! taken away. He who lies down to be kicked may expect kicks, and will not be disappointed, and indeed will have no one to blame but himself. The pertinacity of the Union has been so great and its resolution to impose its own tyrannical will upon the retailj ers, the slaughterman and the public has been so great, that the matter as- ! sumes the aspect of an open and un- \ disguised fight between the Union and ! the Law. To impose any but a heavy

penalty would be to make myself a partner in the acts of the Union. The o'nl'y question is, should anything less than the maximum be imposed? I have .come to that it is .a case fpr .the maximum. Accordingly 1 impose upon, Mr. Thomas W. Furse, the Union Secretary, a penalty lof '£so, and upon the Union a penalty'of £IOOO. In the former case I order that the amount of the penalty shall be a charge on any moneys which are now, or may hereafter be, due to Mr. Furse from present or any future employer for wages, or in respect of work done." Here is a case in which one form of labour callously determined to effect the ruin of another. It shows conclusively that such men are actuated by greed and selfishness solely, and had absolutely no consideration for the most helpless portions of the body politic. Labour, if freed from imported apostles of anarchy.

has all the intelligence and education necessary for working out its own salvation and destiny, and we have always contended that the constitutional read i s the shortest, quickest, and the only honourable highway to its full emancipation.