DISQUIETING NATURE

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 423, 3 May 1937, Page 7

DISQUIETING NATURE

RECENT LONDON SPEECHES Efiect in Industrial Disputes “Recent public utterances by prominent members of the Labour Party are of a most disquieting nature,” said Hon. J. G. Cohbe in an address at Feilding. “Rev. Clyde Carr, then national president of the New Zealand Labour Party, sneaking at Timaru on December 2 uttered a deliberate threat that certain persons occupying important public positions would, to use his own words, ‘be sent down the road.’ This was apparently a threat that unless the Judge of the Arbitration Court carries out the wishes of the unions he may be transferred. “And if the Public Works engineers insist upon greater efficiency than the unions approve of. then the engineers may lose their jobs. , In other words, Public officials, placed in important judicial and administrative positions, are warned that justice and efficiency are not profitable. “A leading newspaper has, very correctly, described this speech as a general menace to freedom, and a step towards dictatorship. “There is little doubt that inflammatory speeches, such as I have referred to, lead to trouble. The defiance of authority and the serious loss to farmers through the recent unjustifiable Auckland strike, would probably never have occurred if the strikers had not felt sure that they had behind them the support of persons occupying important public positions. “The fact must be recognised that, even with its big majority, the present Government does not govern New Zealand. The Auckland strike shows plainly that New Zealanda primary producing country—is governed by city trade unions, from whom the Government takes orders. If the unions do not. agree with the deliberate judgment of a Court 'of Law, the Government will alter the law to suit them. “When the Minister of Labour addressed the strikers at Auckland he said that if the Arbitration Court would not rectify the clause in the award giving employers the right to put extra men on the cliain teams, then the Government would do so by special validating legislation at the first opportunity. “The statement issued by the Canterbury Employers’ Association on January 19 points out that employers are forced to obey all court rulings, under pain of heavy penalties. But when such rulings do not suit those employed, they may be defied; the Government takes no action to enforce them, and promises to alter the law to suit those who have broken it.”