THE MINISTER OF LABOUR CRITICISED.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14379, 12 June 1912, Page 10

THE MINISTER OF LABOUR CRITICISED.

'special to "the press"). ■■'•■' 'DUNEDIN. June 11. The "Star" says:—"Wo are sorry that, it is impossible for us to compliment the Minister of Labour on the speech, which he delivered-in Dunedin last night, and we are the more sorry because time after time we have been able to praise his public utterances in the days of. his private membership. His long Parliamentary experience should have taught him valuable lessons,'which, alas! he does not appear to have taken to heart. Candidly, it was a dull speech. It is also time to say. a word about Mr Laurensonis persistent wanderings, undertaken in ft polemical spirit. The labour troubles at Waihi, with their possibilities of extension, are, we think, sufficiently serious to keep him at his Departmental post in Wellington, even if he ought not to be on the spot at "the centre of the disturbance. Parliament will be meeting in three weeks' time, and Ministers should be spending their leisure, if leisure thoy have, in their offices in Cabinet (and, if the phrate be not too humorous as regards politics) in quiet thought, instead of which they are running about the country in a desperate mood, as it seems, raking up old controversies and trying to raise fictitious issues for the consideration of the Parliament which they have yet to face for the first time." ,