Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1942. “WIDENING” IN THE WAIKATO.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 September 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1942. “WIDENING” IN THE WAIKATO.

MANYN ew Zealanders, irrespective of their political leanings or industrial affiliations, must have learned with disgust that the plain issue raised in the Waikato mining strike has been, oi' is said to have been, complicated by demands for the nationalisation of the coal properties involved in the dispute. It was reported yesterday that the miners on strike in the Waikato had decided to return to work conditionally on the State taking over the mines and according to another message the nationalisation of these mines has been under consideration by the Government for some days. At time of writing no statement on this aspect of the position has been made on behalf, of the Government.

There are, of course, constitutional, methods of raising at any time the question of an extension of the nationalisation of the mining industry in this country, but the declaration oi a coal strike in Avar time can hardly be regarded as having a place in these methods. At the broadest view, since the question of the acquisition by the State of additional mines is highly controversial, it is plainly incumbent on any who may wish to advocate this policy in the present time of war emergency to show that they have adequate grounds for doing so.

Information as it stands and for what it is worth, however, is that the acquisition by the State of the Waikato mines has been demanded by the miners on strike in that district,, apparently as an afterthought in a dispute which arose originally over the payment or non-payment in special conditions of a minimum wage. It is certainly not for outsiders, unacquainted with the technicalities of the coal industry, to attempt to pronounce upon the merits of that dispute. What has been contended, however, not only by the public but by Ministers of the Crown and by the national, and other organisations of the miners themselves, is that no stoppage of work on account of a dispute of the kind, particularly in time of war, can possibly be justified on either legal or moral grounds.

As to this it may be recalled that the Minister of Labour and Mines, Mr "Webb, who had earlier declared that the hold-up by the Waikato miners was a betrayal of the men fighting for our liberty, stated on September 15 that there was no justification for the action taken by the men and that: —

Their refusal to heed the advice of. their own national organisation or to recognise their responsibility and duty to the country in its hour of peril could only be interpreted as a challenge to the State.

To this Mr Sullivan, then Acting-Prime Minister, added on the following day that the refusal of the miners to produce coal had exactly the same effect as the torpedoing of a New Zealand supply ship by the Japanese on the high seas “and the same reaction for the public as though the sinking of the vessel had been done by a New Zealand bombing plane with a fifth column crew.” The Federation of Labour in a statement affirmed that any action which held up war production was contrary to the policy of the trade union movement and observed that if the Waikato miners were confident their case was a good one they should have no fear of submitting it to the disputes committee. The National Council of the United Mine Workers urged the Waikato miners to refer their dispute to the national disputes committee and stated that: “The present strike leads to disaster to our members,- our union and the whole Labour movement.”

With the position thus defined, there should be no difficulty in agreeing that the issue raised in the Waikato ought to be brought to a direct and speedy settlement and that there should be no question of allowing the miners on strike or anyone else to drag in the question of nationalisation. What someone has called the widening of the Waikato dispute looks much more like an attempt to cover up its realities. It is a further and serious aspect of the situation that the normal, operation of the law appears to have been suspended in regard to the enforcement of the sentences passed on strikers who have been before the Court and presumably in regard to further proceedings that may be pending.