"MILESTONES ON THE DOVER ROAD."

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 214, 3 June 1908, Page 6

"MILESTONES ON THE DOVER ROAD."

The spccch which, he delivered at Dunedin on Monday will be< accepted by the' public as a reminder of. the lately muchforgotten 1 fact that Mr. Millar is the. Minister for Labour. The public hacl almost begun to believe, in: its moments ofreflection between the speeches of the At-torney-General and the Colonial Treasurer, that Mr.. Milla,r "had relinqnish;d the.portfolio of Labour. He has so steadily., withheld his light from the serious industrial muddle ■ that is alarming every: thinking ■ person, allowing himself to hi cclipsed \by the fitful gleams of his colleagues, that it is almost with a shock of surprise'that we find him at last lighting his lamp. More singular than his sudden lapse into speech is tho substance of his comments upon the present position of the Arbitration Act; • The cffeit that his curious blending of irrelevant ] statistics ' with astonishing' shouts, jf triumph has produced upon the public .must be similar to tho alarm and amazement of Mr. Clonnam when " Mrs. F. V " suddenly broke her glowering silence with the awful and unfathomable declaration that " there's milestones on the Dover Head."

Mr. Millar " quoted from a list" to show that the total earnings '.of the workers in 1906 amounted to £34,111,100, and that up to date the Labour Department has assisted 152,008 persons. " In the face of. .that, ho asked if the Labour Department was not doing good service." Nil' was this all, or more, than a fraction of all, that could be said in refutation of the suggestion that the Government ha.s brought the Arbitration Act into, contempt, abolished parliamentary authority by , Ministerial edict,' and convinced trades unionism that' it" can do practically as it pleases without, regard to tlrj ; arbitration law. "During the past year," lie added, " the membership in unions registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act has increased by 10,485, which was the largest of any year since tho inception of the Act. How, then, he asked, could it be said that the Conciliation' and Arbitration Act had broken down." Nay, more, since, the thing is <o' obvious that it must be driven home, "ho maintained that it . had been a. thorough success from beginning-to end." What wonder that the audience was so carried away 1 by tliis triumphant logic-that, as tho Press Association reports, the Minister's " defence of his administration of the Act was greeted with hearty, applause by tho great majority of those present " 1 At i this distance 'from .Dunedin, Mr. Millar's proof of the complete, perfect, and undisturbed success of tho Act does appear a, little weak. It seems somehow to take insufficiently into account the fact that-strikes have taken place all over tho country, and apparently will "continue to take place whenever a trades union thinks it worth while giving the public another proof of its full ■ understanding of the many assurances of immunity that the Government has given to ex-strikers, strikers, and those about to strike. Nor does Mn. Millar seem satisfactorily to have disposed of the fact that the.. Act coerces' employers into making concessions to the workers on falso pretences. So perfect an ; Act should require no amendment, and we are surprised that Mr. Millar should have allowed the clamour of those who think Acts should bo enforced to persuado him into a promise that he intends to alter this beneficent and splendidly-administered measure. Exactly what amendments are proposed is not clear. Last year's Bill is to be introduced, bu.t that Bill, we now know, will simply vary the enactment that the Government. failed to 'enforce. The amendments promised are not likely to disturb the Government's adherence to its loading prindiplo that "the Labour Department is not to be used as a means if.

persecution." It is presumably persecution and the rankest injustice to prosecute men who break tno law by going on strike. What would be simple prosecution in the case of the ordinary lawbreaker would be persecution in the case of a trades union. Mr. Millar lias not cleared up, the situation. The extent of his proof did not go beyond some interesting statistics. The Act may be waste paper, and an object of contempt. Tho "untested theory" of Mr. Reeves has failed. No doubt. '' But there arc 10,485 more unionists than there were a year ago. In short, there are milestones on the Dover Road.