THE ONLY WAY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9039, 4 March 1908, Page 4

THE ONLY WAY.

Speaking at a function given by the Institute of Marine Engineers at Wellington, on Monday, the Minister for Labour, referring to the Blackball strike, stated that "he was determined, as far as lay in his power, to fairly and without favour carry out the existing laws." It is satisfactory to learn so much, but the Government is taking a long time in putting the law into effect. It seems to us that the principle immediately involved in the dispute is not whether the law is good or bad in its operation, but that the law as it stands should be respected until it can bo amended in any direction in which amendment may be deemed desirable. Delay in dealing with breaches of the law is always dangerous. The sympathy which is being manifested by unions throughout the dominion adds to the embarrassment of the Government in dealing with the trouble, because in abetting the strike tins various unions are also committing a breach of the I statute. Section 15 of the Arbitration Act Amendment Act, 1905 reads as follow:—"Any industrial union or industrial association or employer, or any worker whether a member of any such union or not, which or who shall strike, or create a lock-out, or purpose, aid or abet a strike or lockout or a movement intended to produce a strike or lock-out, shall be guilty of an offence, and shall be liable to a fine, and may be proceeded against in the same manner as if it or he were guilty of a breach oc award. Provided that the tine shall not exceed one hundred pounds for any such offence in the case of a union, association or employer, or ten pounds in the case of a worker." The longer the Act is allowed to be flouted the more complicated must the position become. We earnestly desire to see the Act maintained, but it is certain its maintenance can only be effected by enforcing respect for its provisions.