THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1908. UNWISE MINISTERIAL INTERVENTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9041, 28 January 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1908. UNWISE MINISTERIAL INTERVENTION.

History repeats itself—but sometimes with a difference. The famous Francis Drake was playing bowls with his brother admirals and captains when the news was brought that the Spanish Armada was off the Lizard. Howard was anxious to put to sea at once, but Drake would first finish the game, saying, "there's plenty of time to finish this game, and to thrash the Spanish too." Nearly three and a-quarter centuries later—to wit, the present year of grace —a terrible labour trouble threatened to involve the Government of the Britain of the South in disaster. Like bis illustrious predecessor, the Minister of Marine was playing bowls when the startling news reached him that a body of colliers several hundred, in number was about to do something that might be dangerous to the country as personified in its Cabinet. And here comes in the difference of attitude of the two great men. The Minister of Labour dropped the bowl from his hand, rushed frantically for his coat, and with the tails of that garment flying in the air he sped for the railway station. The position of New Zealand was evidently more

serious than that of England at the time of the threatened Spanish invasion, and would permit of no such sang froid as was displayed by Drake. The Minister hurriedly engaged a special traixi, and, breathlessly explaining to the Press reporters that he must cancel all engagements and proceed on a special and secret mission, he was whipped off from Dunedin en route to the West Coast to join the Premier. It was not known at the time that the trouble was one in which miners were concerned in two or three coal pits, and the dominionists feared that perhaps the Japanese were coming to seize upon our coastal coal-fields. The position of affairs has since come to light, and we breath again. Once before we were placed in the throes of curious expectancy, when Sir Joseph Ward held a mystery up his sleeve for some days; but that was something pleasant —he hinted—something that would place New Zealand in the fore-front of British States, and make the hearts of the colonists leap for joy. The mystery bubble was eventually blown, and on the globular film of political froth we read the word "Dominion!" There was more derision than joy throughout the colony.

The latest mystery which has just been elucidated is more likely to produce resentment than derision. The trouble in connection with the Denniston miners is one which may involve the dominion in considerable inconvenience if it comes to a head in the shape of a strike; but there are legal and constitutional means of dealing with that trouble, and there does not appear to us.' to have been any need for, first, a mystery, then a lime-light exhibition, and, finally, special intervention on the part of the Government. It has ever been the boast of the Ministry that our Arbitration Act is equal to all / em.erge-ncie.s,,and that our Arbitration Court is able to enforce compliance with the Act. The conduct of the Premier would appear to falsify the boast. The miners have been offered every concession that reasonable men could demand, but they have ignored all offers. The next procedure,should have been the enforcement of the law as laid down by the Court, but the Premier has seen fit to put a slight upon that judicial body by interposing bi3 administrative personage between the men and the law. Surely this is doing more to destroy the dignity of the Court and the value of the Arbitration Act than any action any body of dissatisfied workers would be likely to take. [Since the above' was in type a telegram from Westport informs us *,hat the bank-to-bank difficulty has been settled at a conference between Ministers,' miners' delegates and the Westport Coal Company's manager. This fact in no way detracts from, but rather adds to, the force of our remarks respecting the impropriety of the course adopted by the Premier and Minister of Labour.]