WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3408, 12 February 1920, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS

LABOUR TROUBLES.

UINCITING TO STRIKE.”

(Special Corxespondent.)

WELLINGTON; Feb. 11.

5 The Labour leaders -continue to ridicule the stories of -an impending general strike in which all the workers’ unions of any consequence -are to be involved and every important industry in the Dominion attacked.. “The sort. of stuff that is being talked about the town and published ‘in the newspapers,” a seeretifiry of one of the unions said this morning, “is nothing less than an incitement to strike, and if the authorities did their duty they would pull up the gossips with a round turn before :they -do any moro lrarm.” Other prominent figures in the Labour movement have spzolgen to the same effect, and it must be admitted that the temper of the Workers, speaking gener'ally, appears to be much less bellicose than it was in the years before the war. T COST 0 F LIVINGr. The main cause of such unrest as exists among the workers is the high cost of living and its persistent increase. Here they do not blame the great body of employers, who are suffernig tlfeinsclves from tthc enhanced prices, but the Government, which they firmly believe has signally failed to restrain the operations of the cxploitcr and the profiteer. Even here, however, they are not preaching direct action as ‘the remedy for their troubles. Their heavy polling at the general election, which they are estimating at. its full face value, has inspired them with a new faith in constitutional methods, and a new belief in their own political power. They‘ are devoting themselves to propaganda. work, and looking for-w|a;rd—-confidently, they profcss—to the next. appeal to the constituencies A WAITING POLICY. ' Meanwhile Mr Massey is following the “waiting and seeing” policy. There is la disposition on the part of some of the emphoyers who have difficulties with their hands‘ to shift their troubles on to his broad shoulders, and .'to'-day he is meeting the representatives of the mine owners and the miners ‘in conference, but so far ‘he has given no indication ofthg ‘resolute measures which were to place the.industrial affairs of the country on a sound basis, and so facilitate the great work of reco~ns.truction. "Nor, apart fromthe mining dispute, which at the moment is sub judice, is there any labour problem calling insistently for his more active intervention. If there; is serious unrest among the workers, it is not apparent on the surface, and Mr I Massey is too old a politician ‘to meet} trouble half way. * CABINET MAKING.

Probably a matter occasioning the Prime _Minister more anxiety the present time is the reeonsfruction of his Cabinet. He is receiving advice‘ on this rnaftter from all quarter-s——from his political opponents lalxnost as freely as from his political fr-ien(ls~—an(l there have been runnings to and from between Wellington and ‘rhe'provinces which seem to suggest that he is not averse to hearing the views of other people on the subject. There is one section of his well-wishers urging him to include Liberal and Labour representatives in his ministry——the ‘-Hon. VV. D. S. MlaeD_o'n.ald and the Hon.‘ A. M. Myers being named as representatives of one party, and Mr W. A. Veitch as the representative of the other—-but it is doubtful if the rank and file.of any of the parties would approve of this course. and without the approval of them all it woul(l.s(3rve none of the purposes he had in view, except, perhaps, to secure the services of Mr Myers at the Treasury.