Sabotage And Assault

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26409, 1 May 1951, Page 6

Sabotage And Assault

The current industrial trouble took ugly turns yesterday when it was found that explosives had been used to damage a bridge linking Huntly with the open-cast mining area and when, last night, the president of the new watersiders’ union at Auckland was taken to hospital after being attacked at his home by three men. These were not the actions of individuals interested in settling an industrial dispute by lawful means and on the merits of the case, but were criminal sabotage and assault designed to bolster up a lost cause by resort to gross intimidation. The watersiders’ dispute has cost the community too much, and too many issues affecting lawful government are involved for the tide to be turned at this stage by such means. This must be made thoroughly clear. The Government has been tolerant and patient. It has bent backwards to avoid anything that would provoke and unduly antagonise the watersiders. After even 10 weeks of unlawful strike it has held watersiders’ jobs open for them and has given them preferential opportunities to take up their former employment on fair terms. Actions such as yesterday’s imply two things. First, some persons at least have mistaken the Government’s patience for weakness; otherwise they would not believe that the Government’s terms for ending the dispute could be affected by intimidation. Second, sabotage, assault and damage to a man’s home affirm that everything that has been said about the need to purge the industrial life of New Zealand of vicious and dangerous elements is thoroughly justified. It is the Government’s plain and obvious duty now to disabuse the minds of any who have mistaken tolerance for weakness, and it must use all the processes of the law to uphold and vindicate the law. Such action will receive the support of every law-abiding citizen in the community; and this should include the larger, decent element among the strikers. These men must see that nothing more than yesterday’s acts are calculated to turn away from them whatever remnants of community sympathy remain. They have a simple and easy way to dissociate themselves emphatically from such actions.