The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1922. TALKING AGAINST TIME.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 February 1922, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1922. TALKING AGAINST TIME.

The wearisome and unedifying torrent of loquacity that the extreme Labor section of the House has inflicted, at the country’s expense, on a long-suffering assembly of legislators may be all in the Parliamentary game, but it is certainly to be deplored. They may lay the flattering unction to their souls that they are fighting for principles, but a more correct translation of their dead set against Arbitration Bill would be to describe it as an unprincipled stonewall. One after another these Labor extremists kept the ball rolling, not that they had anything new to say, but merely reiterating an implacable animosity towards the measure, in which they profess to see a determination on the part of the Government to reduce wages, curtail the spending power of the masses, and perpetrate the greatest sin of all —favor the small unions as against the principle of one big union that aimed at having the country at its mercy. Until some more effective method is agreed upon the Arbitration Court must be the means whereby industrial conditions and disputes are to be settled, and it is obviously right to improve the constitution and machinery of the Court, also to enlarge its powers. No doubt the irreconcilables would prefer to settle all labor matters themselves, in their own way, and the public is only too well acquainted with their methods to be able to accurately forecast what that way would be. If the public have no preference for unionists, they have a decided preference for constitutional methods instead of direct, arbitrary and ruthless syndicalism. It is not claimed that the Arbitration Bill is by any means a perfect measure, but there is

certainly no injustice to be found in its provisions, yet the whole legislative business of the country is being held up by members representing the extreme section of Labor, who threaten that the unions will resist its operation. Fortunately there is only one Government in this country, and it is sufficiently strong, as well as having the solid backing of the great body of law-abiding people, to be undeterred by idle threats. There is no need to resort to the Arbitration Court ,and no reason why disputes should arise, if a reasonable co-operation exists between employers and employed, besides which conciliation still applies. It has suited the extreme Labor members to carry on a stonewall that is too petty for words. If the measure could be improved safely and fairly the malcontents’ duty was to help to make it as near perfect as possible, instead of which they will have none of it, so have been talking against time, an occupation that fits in with such familiar tactics as stop-work meetings, go-slow, and similar methods emphasising the peculiar kink in their mental structure. In the usual way Labor is associated with the work of construction, but extreme Labor has become synonymous with destruction. Considering that no union is injuriously affected by the Bill, the display of garrulous hostility by a few members of the House is entirely out of place, and the pity is that no provision exists for business of Parliament being conducted without being subjected to deliberate obstruction.