WAIKATO STRIKE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 October 1942, Page 3

WAIKATO STRIKE

HANDLING BV GOVERNMENT

- CHALLENGED

NO CONFIDENCE DEBATE.

IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day.

• When the House of Representatives met yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Holland) gave notice of a noconfidence motion. The debate was opened in the evening, and the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, who followed Mr Holland, replied with an amendment inviting the House to pledge its loyalty to the Government and the War Cabinet in the war effort. The debate, in which two other speakers took part, will be continued today.

The House rose at 10.32 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. today. GOVERNMENT & MINERS. Mr Holland said he was conscious of the responsibility involved in moving such a motion. His purpose was to provide members of the House with an unlimited opportunity to discuss important events that had happened m New Zealand during the past few weeks. The country was entitled to the fullest information as to the circumstances which had led up to the resignation of four National Party Ministers from the War Administration. “The Government conceded to the Waikato miners more than what they struck for,” said Mr Holland. “In my opinion 13,000 dairy farmers have been robbed of their mines, for two of the largest mines are owned by the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company, Ltd. These dairy farmers have a right to a say in the management of their own affairs, and they have had this right taken from them because 1300 miners broke the law. The responsibility for the government of this country has passed from the elected representatives of the people to men guilty of breaking the law and holding up the war effort.” The payment of fees from the War Expenses Account to members of the Board of Control to be appointed was criticised by Mr Holland. That, he said ,was a misuse of war funds. “I was asked to do things that strike a blow at British justice and to agree with things that make the law of this country a mockery,” said Mr Holland. “I was asked to bow to what has been described by Ministers on the other side of .the House as an irresponsible minority, industrial wreckers, enemies of the State and those who played the Japanese game. Those who asked that of me asked the impossible. I took the only course possible if I were to retain my selfrespect. I was not prepared to subordinate principle for expediency.” ALTERNATIVES SUGGESTED. Mr Holland said the Prime Minister had done him an injustice when he had said that no alternatives had been advanced to the action of the Government. “I did put forward alternatives,” he said. “I suggested that coalmining be declared a war industry; that the same conditions apply to the miners as to the soldiers in camps. I urged that strong action be taken and that the ringleaders of the strike be immediately arrested and incarcerated. I believe that had that been done the strike would have been settled in 24 hours. I favoured giving the miners 48 hours to get back to work or putting them into camp. Properly handled with firmness and resolution by the imprisonment of the wreckers and ringleaders the strike could have been broken.”

Mr Holland said he was opposed to the capitulation which was a policy of appeasement, a policy which was an enemy to the Empire and the world. “There has been too much expediency and too little adherence to principles,” he said. “I left the Cabinet meeting because it was a matter of honour and conscience. I would sooner retire from public life than give up those principles f) MR FRASER’S REPLY.

In replying to the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister moved the following amendment: — “This House pledges anew its united and wholehearted support for the Government and the War Cabinet in the conduct of the war effort, and expresses its determination as representatives of all the people in the Dominion to prosecute that war effort with singleness of purpose and undiminished energy until victory for the cause of democracy and freedom is won.”

Mr Fraser said that the arguments advanced by the Leader of the Opposition were unreal in face of the war situation facing this country. “All will agree that the overwhelming need was and is unity in our war effort,” he continued. “I felt that all along, and made every effort to achieve it, and was prepared to go further and agree to a National Government. There can be no basis of a National Government if one is not sure of his colleagues, and if they decide immediately they cannot get their own way to resign. All promise of national unity in the war effort has been smashed. What reliance and what confidence can there be when a minority which does not get its own way retires and smashes up an arrangement? There is no basis of trust on which one can build. That is the most regrettable and serious aspect of the whole business.”

Mr Fraser said that nothing in the way of administration was important enough to smash the unity that was so desirable today. The action of the Leader of the Opposition showed a lack of comprehension of the issues at stake. The miners were admittedly wrong when they struck or went slow, said Mr Fraser. Striking or going slow was trebly wrong in war time. Judging from some newspaper articles the Press did not seem to realise that in war time the pick was more powerful and more essential than the pen, and that coal was more important than misleading articles. MINES TO BE RETURNED. The Prime Minister denied emphatically that the idea of control of the mines originated with the miners. He stated also that after the war the mines would be returned to the owners, who would be safeguarded against any capital loss. Contending that if there was justification for winning industrial peace in the seamen’s strike in 1934 then there was a thousand times more justification for what was done in the Waikato to keep up the production of coal. Mr Fraser added: “I have never known so much harm done with so little cause. The whole basis of unity has been destroyed. I regret the strike, I regret the attitude of the men, I regret the miners forced the magistrate to impose sentence, and I regret that Ministers emulated miners who had struck because one of them could not get his own way.” The Minister of Mines, Mr Webb, said the Leader of the Opposition’s alternative was to bring in the military forces. He apparently did not appreciate that one could not drive miners to produce coal with machine-guns. Had his course been followed there would have been civil war. Had the miners been put in prison the workers throughout the country would have come out on strike and chaos would have resulted. He defended the Government’s action as being the only way out of a difficult situation.