AN OPTIMISTIC MINISTER.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 125, 19 February 1908, Page 6

AN OPTIMISTIC MINISTER.

, It was a natural: enough suspicion that made a, Christchurch interviewer ask Mr. Millar yesterday whether'his visit to Dunedin was connected with the wharf-labourers' ; dispute. 1 Mr. Millar must make up his mind to'endure as best he may the public belief that every time he pack's' his travelling bag he is .going'to pacify , some Union that is grumbling at having to observe the form of respect for an Act which it knows' will.not be. allowed to inconvenience it so long: as the Minister is strong enough to travel. It is quite likely that the Minister's visit to the South is,:connected, with the dispute, for we remember that in ai'n-.in-granted'.to a "Press" reporter in Christchurch on his way to Denniston he denied, probably for reasons of State, in the most definite .and emphatic fashion that his visit had any relation whatever to the trouble at the mines. He was : reticent.. yesterday when invited to discuss'the position of industrial- arbitration, but; lie Baid enough to disclose the uneasy anxiety of the Government to dispel the suggestion that in shouldering the : Arbitration Court out of the way in the coal-mines trouble, the Government dealt a deadly blow at law and order. His' confidence in the Court, he says, "has not been shaken by recent events," which is probably true, and' his confidence in the Court is shared by everybody who knows 'that the Court, is a fair and impartial tribunal. But if his confidence in the effectiveness of the Court is' unshaken, he will find few impartial people to agree with him. We can well believe that he is correct in saying that " the bulk of the wprkers have no desire' to see the Act repealed." Why should they have any such desire, when Ministers are ready to make the Act a dead letter ? The Unions, of course, desire to retain

the Act, since, as at present administered, it is a terror to nobody but the unfortunate employer. : When, we hear Mr. Millar saying, however, that "the feeling on the West Coast amongst the miners was in favour of the Act," and that tho men " had no desire to flout, .the Arbitration CouitJ' we feel that

either Mr. Millar is dreaming, or else there was no trouble at Demiiston at all. It _ is' not difficult to imagine Judge Sim quoting Keiuble's lines:— "When lata'l attempted your pity to move, Wily sconicd you so deaf to my prayers? Perhaps it was right to dissemble your lovo. But —why did you kick me downstairs? The Minister's refusal to declare the Government's intentions for the coming session makes it clear that the Government's affectation of buoyancy and confidence in the'matter is a mask for real alarm.