Labour and the Press.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19027, 15 June 1927, Page 10

Labour and the Press.

It is not necessary to treat very seriously the suggestion made by a trade union representative appearing before the Arbitration Court in Wellington that the newspapers of the Dominion would "attempt to in"timidate the Arbitration Court." The suggestion was accompanied by an almost direct charge that the criticisms of the Arbitration Act which have appeared in recent months were propagandist preliminaries to the hearing of-the printing trades dispute. The Judge agreed with the employers' representative that the suggestion was an improper one, and dismissed as unworthy of consideration the notion that the newspapers would attempt to influence the Court. The idea is absurd on the face of it; everyone knows that the recent criticisms of the Act, as the Judge pointed out, arose chiefly out of the discontent of the farming community. But there are one or two things that must be said concerning the incident. The first thing to be said is that the union representative's groundless suggestion brings into prominence the indisputable fact that organised Labour has for years endeavoured to intimidate the Court The official organ of the very union concerned in the case before the Court on Monday thought fit to give publicity to an article in which the following threat was made: "Should the Court ignore the evidence of improved conditions ob- " taining among our Australian "neighbours on this occasion, I "feel that more drastic means "will have to be employed." The publication of such a threat is an infringement of the Act, and if any employer or daily newspaper or any organ of an Employers' Association were to use such language the Labour organisations would immediately—and quite rightly—demand that action should be taken. Over, and over again Labour organisations, dissatisfied with awards of the Court, have resorted to strikes. That a Labour advocate should make a baseless charge of intimidation against those who do keep the law would be merely amusing were it not that years of unpunished lawlessness have persuaded organised Labour that it has a right to break the law. The incident is worth remarking also for its evidence of the persistence of organised Labour's policy of seeking to discredit the newspapers. The newspapers can take care of themselves, of course, and they are nqt damaged in the eyes of any but that moron bloc which is the mainstay of the Labour movement in this country. The Labour leaders who take every opportunity to attack the newspapers know perfectly well that their imputations of fraud and falsehood have no shadow of foundation, but they know also that there are thousands of ignorant and simpleminded creatures %vho will believe anything that comes from a soap-box. These poor creatures they do not scruple to deceive. The strangest thing about the Labour movement is the fact that the many upright and honest men who sympathise with it cannot realise that there must be something wrong with a political gospel which relies upon such methods.