Mr Macfarlane And The R.S.A.

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26510, 27 August 1951, Page 6

Mr Macfarlane And The R.S.A.

No one will take very seriously the verbal tussle between Mr R. M. Macfarlane, M.P., and the Dominion executive of the New Zealand Returned Services’ Association; but the whole incident has a certain interest for the public because it demonstrates again the Labour Party’s extraordinary sensitiveness to criticism, expressed or implied, of its attitude ip the waterfront dispute. The' R.S.A. statements, indeed, could scarcely be said to have contained even implied criticism of the Labour Party—at the time they were issued. It was the Labour Party’s subsequent actions, rather than its defined policy up to that point, that brought the Labour Party’s policy squarely into conflict with the policy which the R.S.A urged upon returned servicemen members of the waterfront and other unions involved in the strike At the time of the first R.S.A. statement Mr Nash had just announced the Labour Party’s neutrality. On the other hand, the Federation of Labour had advised the strikers to return to work. There was then no clear indication of the cleavage that was to develop and deepen between the political Labour movement and the industrial Labour movement. There was no sign that political Labour’s “ neither-for-nor- “ against ” attitude, which the over whelming majority of the public found incomprehensible, would progressively deteriorate into tacit support “for” the right of militant unions to override the lawful industrial processes by direct action and “against" the right of the Government to enforce the law, protect the community, and. deal firmly with the militants who have been described by responsible Labour Party men as “misleaders” and “wreckers”. The R.S.A. offered good advice to former servicemen among the

strikers; and many of them probably regret now that they did not take it. The R.S.A. had a legitimate interest, also, in the wellbeing of the community as a whole—not only returned servicemen and their

families—who had already suffered heavily through the strike and seemed likely to suffer much more. It rightly and reasonably used what influence it had to bring about the settlement of the strike in the only way that it could be settled—by the strikers going back to work. For reasons of its own, the Labour Party took a different view; and it is no doubt conscious that its view is shared by very few in the community. But the Labour Party, insisting as it does that it is right and everyone else is wrong, must offer a plausible explanation of the solid body of public opinion that has been ranged against it. The Labour Party would have the public believe that it is the victim of a plot in which the Government, the newspapers, the Federation of Labour, the R.S.A.. and any other bodies which have shown their dislike of industrial banditry, are joined by a common purpose—to discredit the Labour Party. The public may prefer to accept another view—that the Labour Party discredited itself by its own actions.