Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1938. HOLDING UP THE COUNTRY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 November 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1938. HOLDING UP THE COUNTRY.

_— »■ ACCORDING to the secretary of the Waterside Workers’ • Federation (Mr J. Roberts), the dispute which led to the activities of the*port of Auckland being held up for ten days resulted from certain shipowners adopting a dictatorial policy. •What exactly that may mean is not clear. Shipowners, as well as waterside workers, are or should be bound by awards and by the law of the Dominion and means exist by which the watersiders could have secured redress of any established grievance without imposing a ten days’ blockade and resultant heavy loss on the general community. On behalf ol the employers, Mr W. 11. G. Bennett has challenged the description of the dispute by the Minister of Labour (Mr Armstrong) as “an argument Between some waterside workers and the foreman of a shipping company,” and has stated that the question is whether the workers should break awards at their pleasuie and the shipping companies should be firmly bound.

These questions no doubt ought to be settled and completely cleared up, but they are not the questions which most immediately affect the long-suffering general community. Ihe greater need at present is that of devising some means of protecting the public of the Dominion from being, as it were, kicked about by both parties because they happen to feel displeased with one another. A pair of individual disputants who attempted to vent their spleen on one another by blockading the house of some unoffending third parfy, and preventing the butcher and baker from calling, would speedily find themselves in gaol. This, however, is very much the.sort of thing that is done with impunity, and done on a big scale, bv shipowners and watersiders when a port dispute is under way. The worst effects fall on people who have nothing whatever to do with the dispute.

Many thousands of people in the Dominion were subjected, to inconvenience and loss, though some only on a minor scale, because shipowners and watersiders were at odds with one another in Auckland for a period of ten days. It is not the business of the general body of citizens to go into the merits of' a dispute of this kind, but they have every possible right to object to being penalised and misused, by disputants on the waterfront or by any other disputants. If the existing machinery for’ the settlement of disputes between shipowners and watersiders is inadequate, it ought io be improved, but whether it is improved or not, neither of these parties should be allowed to inflict hardship and loss on the genera] community by way of emphasising the displeasure ’with -which it regards the other party. The dispute in Auckland was settled after ten days on terms which apparently might have been arranged just as easily at the beginning of that period. The principal cost of this foolishness fell, or will fall, on unoffending citizens who have every right to resent the outrageous treatment meted out to them and to demand effective protection against any repetition of their unfortunate experience on this occasion. If the Minister of Labour thinks the late dispute was “an argument between some waterside workers and the foreman of a shipping company,” he and his colleagues -no doubt will agree that it is more than time to prevent those who engage in any such trivial contention from imposing wholesale and serious loss and inconvenience on a considerable part of the population.

PROTECTING THE BUSH.

TT may be hoped that not only district local bodies, but the public generally will respond readily to the appeal of the State Forest Service for co-operation in. protecting native and exotic forests from fire during the summer season. Only reasonable care, which everyone should be very willing to exercise, is needed to reduce these dangers to a minimum and so to safeguard forest assets which, though sadly reduced, are still of immense value to the district. One of the requests addressed bv the State Forest Service 1o the Masterion County Council at its last meeting was that roadmen, when working in the vicinity of forests, should assist as much as possible by extinguishing small fires left by campers and others, checking’ the lighting of fires in dangerous places, and in the eyent of fires which appeared to be serious, getting into touch with the nearest office of the State Forest Service.

In. a district like the Wairarapa it should be possible to establish conditions in which all. campers and others lighting fires, where this is permitted, would as a matter of routine observe necessary precautions, including that of completely extinguishing fires before leaving them. A. great many people, old and young, already observe all proper precautions against the spread of fires in or in the neighbourhood of forest areas and some organisations are doing good work in emphasising the need for these precautions. Instruction on the subject should be, and no doubt is, given periodically in schools and by youth and other organisations.

Some positive measures of protection arc also enforced. The lighting of fires in or on the borders of State forests and scenic 'reserves is prohibited under penalties which are thoroughly justified. Stern action should be taken against individuals who at times wantonly damage or endanger our remaining forest assets. The best safeguard of all, however, m in the awakening throughout the' community, in the minds of old and young of an appreciation of the value of these assets and of an enthusiastic readiness to co-operate in protecting them from damage. From standpoints alike of utility, and beauty, forests and plantations are an invaluable part of our community environment and in many instances would be virtually irreplaceable if they were once destroyed. The broad countryside is for all of us, it we care to make it so, oui lai get habitation, and we should all of us be more than ready to protect it as scrupulously as the dwellings in which we shelter from day to day.