IF- ?

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXIII, Issue 8726, 27 November 1913, Page 3

IF- ?

IF NEW ZEALAND HAD A FISHER GOVERNMENT.

Under the above heading, the Sydney "Daily Telegraph" of Nov. 14 says:— It is now evident that the great New Zealand strike has to be included in the long list of abortive attempts to, industrially garrotte a free community. The people have insisted upon those who refused to work themselves leaving unmolested others who were willing to take their places, and freedom having urns asserted .itself the end of mob I tyranny immediately came in sight, i Upon this speedy vindication of law and I order the Dominion Government is to i be congratulated. And the same' may I be for the determined public opin- j ion by which it was supported in the I discharge of its duties as keeper of the peace. With a different kind of administration, it is impossible to say! what excesses might not have been committed by infatuated men under the Strange delusion that outrages committed in connection : with a strike are sanctified. The humane policy is always to disabuse the strikers of thi.-.\ idea at the first manifestation of lawlessness, for by doing so they may be prevented from proceeding to acts that would involve much heavier, consequences later on. The most recent parallel for this New Zealand strike w,as the attempt made to forcibly stop all work .in Brisbane tuvtil the Brisbane Tramway Company yielded to the demands of its employees on the badgewearing/question. An organised conspiracy of trades unions took possession of Brisbane and proclaimed that\ nobody would be permitted to get as ( much as a loaf of break except by per- r mission of its leaders, who had arrogated to themselves an > authority higher than that of the law or the Constitution. . Men having no concern with; the badge question entered into this conspiracy, and people unconnected with it were to Jie..the'yictims.' It is interesting to cbnlpai'e how the Federal^ Government.'.of Australia faced that'crisi* with ■• the.; . of the responsible authorities in .New Zealand towards tha present' bnei^And further interest ,isadded to the comparison by recollecting that in Australia during the Queensland- strike a Labour Government was in power. ■ . Mr Fisher, the then Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, became not o

an open sympathiser with the attemp' to supplant constitutional govcrment by a lawless autocracy of strike leaders, , but an active supporter of it. . Aftoi expressing his highest satisfaction with the conduct of the men who had conspired to forcibly prevent inoffensive people from obtaining the necessaries of life, he provided some of the sinews of war in the form of a cash donation to the strike fund. And when the State Government, which was charged with.the responsibility of maintaining the law, made a constitutional request for the necessary lawful force to overawe peace-breakers,. :. he ■ refused it. Furthermore, strikers who- lost'their billets through trying to wreck the industries that employed them, were rewarded by the Federal Government with the promise of preference over law-abiding; men in connection witi>. work in Commonwealth departments. Ib was fortunate that the State Government in this emergency was abls i obtain support elsewhere, and that party in power there was not under the political thumb of the strikers like the Federal Caucus. For had the dut> of keeping the peace been entrusted to the Fisher Government nothing f-i

of a providential intervention nvp;"'have prevented anarchy.and bloodshed. It would have been tho same had .tho Government of New Zealand in the present crisis taken a similar attitude to that of the Federal Labour Government in the Queensland emergency. Suppose the Prime Minister /of the Dominion, instead of. impartially upholding the law, had deliberately ti?<> its hands as Mr Fisher had done, and then given the law-breakers not only his blessing but a donation of money to assist tlfeir enterprise ? It would mean the abrogation of law and the oblitera : tion of liberty while a self-con stitH;autocracy took violent possession of th. country. That is if the people could have tolerated such' a thing. But the supposition' is impossible. For if the Prime Minister and his colleagues haci deserted the*law there is a spirit in the people that would have promptly nrger! them totally, round it as they did under the leadership of the State Government when that happened in Queensland. It all shows that, while we remain a civilised community law must rule, and that those who hope _to succeed by arbitrarily setting it aside will sooner or later , meet the disappointment they'deserye.; /■' . .