LABOUR AND ITS MINISTER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3149, 29 March 1909, Page 4

LABOUR AND ITS MINISTER.

The Minister for Labour (Hon. A. W. Hogg) is having trouble with the Furniture Workers' Union, and the cause of it is not really whether the Union is right, and Mr Hogg wrong, or vice versa, but the Minister for Labour has given an indication that he, like his predecessor, the Hon. J. A. Millar, has a mind of his own, and this in the eyes of those Unionists, who can only see ,one side to the Capital and Labour question, is a painfully serious and exasperating defect. Whoever the Minister for Labour may be in is his first duty to endeavour to maintain the balance of power between Capital and Labour. Extreme Labourites, however, completely fail to see the justice of such action, and they insist upon regarding the Minister for Labour as their special Minister—their tool in fact, and if he will noi bow at ! their behest—well, there is trouble! j The dispute in Wellington, already j referred to, is one that, has reference to the much vexed question of preference to Unionists. Now, it has always seemed to us that the preference trouble would be speedily got over if the awards of the Arbitration Court applied only to Unionists. The Unionists' complaint is that thsy win victories and that nonUnionists share in the benefits of those victories, which the latter contribute nothing, and run no risk whatever. "The spoils for the victors" is a good principle, and if the Arbitration Court awards only applied to those Unions whiuh have fought for them, we should hear less about the preference question.