LABOUR TROUBLES.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 37, 12 February 1920, Page 8

LABOUR TROUBLES.

INCITING TO STRIKE. WELLINGTON WORKERS' PROTEST. (Special Correspondent. , ) WELLINGTON, February 11. The Labour leaders continue to ridicule the stories of an impending general strike in which all the workers' unions of any consequence are to lie involved, and even- important industry in the Dominion" attacked. "The sort of stun is being talked about the town and published in the newspapers," a secretary of one of the unions said this J morning, "is nothing less than an incitement to etrike, and if the authorities jdid their duty they would pull up the goeeipe with a round turn before they do any more harm." Other prominent figures" in the Labour movement have Hpoken to the same effect, and it must be admitted that the temper of the workers, speaking generally, appears to be much lees bellicose tban it was in the years before the war. COST OF LIVING.

The main cause of such unrcet as exists among the workers is the high cost of living and its persistent increase. Here they do not blame the great body of the employers, who are sufferers themselves from the enhanced prices, but the Government, which they firmly believe has signally failed to restrain the operations of the exploiter and the profiteer. Even here, however, they are not preaching direct action as the remedy for their troubles. Their heavy polling at the general election, which they are estimating at its full face value, has inspired them with a new faith in constitutional method* and a new belief in their own political power. They are devoting themselves to propaganda work and looking forward —confidently, they profess—to the next appeal to the constituencies. A WAITING POLICY. Meanwhile Mr. Massey ig following the "waiting and seeing" policy. There is a disposition on the part of some of tit? employers who have difficulties with their hands to shift their troubles on to his broad shoulders, and to-day he is meeting the representatives of the mine owners and the minere in conference, but so far he has given no indication of the resolute- measures which were to placo the industrial affaire of the country on a sound basin, and so facilitate the great work of reconstruction. Nor, apart from the raining dispute, w,hich at this moment is sub judice, ie there any labour problem calling insistently for his more active intervention. If there is serious unrest among the workers, it is not apparent on the surface, and Mr. Massey is too old a politician to meet trouble halfway.