MR PETER BOWLING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10130, 2 December 1910, Page 4

MR PETER BOWLING.

It says very little for the organising powers of the' industrial classes of New Zealand if it is considered necessary to import a man of .the callbre of Mr Peter Bowling to organise the labouring classes of this Dominion. There are in New Zealand several very skilful champions of the cause of Labour. Among these may be numbered Mr T. E. Taylor and Mr D. McLaren. Both of these gentlemen occupy seats in Parliament,: and one of them at anyrate is keen, if not subtle in debate. If Mr Bowling has come to the Dominion to de- : monstrate the futility of arbitration, his mission is doomed to failure at the outset. Every- worker knows, that, had it not been for the Arbi- | tration Court, he would have possess- , ed no legal method of enforcing his | claims. If the objective of Mr Bowling is to abolish the Arbitration Court and substitute for it the violent method of "striking," his mission will surely not appeal to the worker. It may be true that the Arbitration system is not perfect, and that the position of the worker is no better to-day than it was twenty :- years ago. The general'community, however, has had a comparative immunity'from strikes,- and for this the Arbitration. Court is responsible. When Tom Mann came to New Zealand and tried to upset things, he was politely told that he was not required. Mr Peter Bowling is reputedly a more violent agitator than Mr Tom Mann. And this.is saying a great deal. The Labour Federation is taking a very serious . risk in bringing such a man to the Dominion.