Without Notes

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24160, 20 January 1944, Page 4

Without Notes

Speaking at the Commonwealth Government’s luncheon to the New Zealand Ministers at Canberra, the Hon. P. C. Webb, as reported yesterday, told his hosts and the world that only two industrial stoppages in New Zealand had “lasted beyond “ one day.” He spoke without notes, of course; but it is unfortunate that he did so. His memory failed him badly. There is no need to make a catalogue, which can be abstracted in a few minutes from the annual reports of the Department of Labour; but it is surprising that Mr Webb should have forgotten so soon and so easily the more protracted of his difficulties on the waterfront, in the freezing works, and on the coalfields. They exceed two. They do not, it might almost be thought, exceed Mr Webb’s tolerance; for he went on to say that he was proud of the New Zealand coal miners, who in a year, had held “ only one or two little stop-work “meetings.” What year Mr Webb did not specify; but the notes he dispensed with would have told him that in the complete year 1942-43 coal' production was held up by 25 disputes, and the 6877 workers involved lost more than 25,000 days. They would have reminded him that the current year has been marked and marred by more than one or two little stop-work meetings, and by worse than little stopwork meetings. Mr Webb spoke without notes; or it is kind to suppose so. But he had no right to speak without heed. He may suppose himself to have spoken manfully in the right strain, because he condemned industrial absentees and denounced as the enemy’s friend any worker who holds up production. But the effect of these heroics is lost in the folly of a Minister who, having left a heap of industrial trouble behind him, talks it down to insignificance and talks up the authors of most of it to glory.