The Dominion. THURSDAY, JULY 2, 1903. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CRISIS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 239, 2 July 1908, Page 6

The Dominion. THURSDAY, JULY 2, 1903. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CRISIS.

Yesterday carried stage further the awakening of the New. Zealand public to the failurp of industrial.arbitration. It is -particularly satisfactory .to us that the people and the politicians are escaping irora the'rule of superstition and platitude that, has,reigned for fourteen years, since. Tiif. Dominion , has consistently warned the. public, in the face of tho most; violent denial, that the . Arbitration Act, is a vain attempt to check the action; of irresistible laws. We of .course share to the full the patriotic citizen's regret that this country is not, 1 : after all,', the sole recipient from Fate of an exemption from the'laws of nature and of economics, but there can be no health in a persistent clinging to- delusions. 'Mr; Millar's plain talk has created the stir that we expected, arid'it has liberated a reassuring volume of opinion hostile to any further 'paltering with a serious national crisis. Tho Prime Minister, however, refuses to take up'the statesmanlike attitude duo from his high office. While the rest of us, regardless of party, are too deeply concerned for-the happiness of the country to; remember anything but the fact before us, lie still strives to make the question a party one. He appears unable to understand that he and his politics are unimportant details of the situation. It would be a small matter, and a mere side issue, that he says that he "does not 'care whether political capital is made out of tho matter or not," were it not that such language is'-in-jurious "to the prospects of a national settlement of a grave national trouble.. Mit. Massey's sober references to the situation should have made it clear to the Prime Minister that " party capital" can go a-begging. But Sir Joseph is still thinking of Labour's votes at the coming elections : and his only contribution to a discussion demanding frankness and resolution is a characteristic declaration that " if men were to violently oppose tho Act when they did not got what they wanted, and the Minister was to be accused of ! not doing his duty, then the next and only , thing to do was to say they would have no law at all." "Tho next and only thing to do was to say" |! We have had that policy too long; the only thing to do is to act.

Everyono now is talking of "ending or mending" the gallant attempt of 1804 to achicve the . impossible. Even Sir Joseph Ward—from behind a thick hedge of precautionary qualifications—admits that amendment is required. What Mr. Reeves is thinking in London we do not know; a sensible man, ho has probably succumbed to the force of facts. The public has no time to waste, however, on sad reminiscences: it is concerned only with what Parliament will do. Everybody will sympathise with the attitude of such men as Mr. Ell, who pathetically reminds us, as if it were of some use in the crisis, that the Act has been of enormous value to the worker, but it is to bo hoped that Parliament will take up a different attitude altogether. Our own opinion, which wo have constantly expressed, is still that a system based on compulsory aribtrafcion and constant cocvcion can never succeed, but will merely breed injustices liko thoso that havo at last aroused tho public .conscience. It

is an .open question'whether, on a bald motion being put, Parliament would repeal the Act to-day; Such a motion would place members in a false position, as they would he agitated and swayed by speculation as to what would rcplace the worn-out machine. The Government, therefore, is unfair in giving no hint of the exact scope of its proposed amendments, as Mr. Lang points out in the interview that we print to-day. There is 110 excuse for further rcticcnce. Mr. .Millar's speech, indeed, would commit any Government that was in earnest and had no arrierc pcnsr.c to an immediate statement of a detailed'character. The Hon. J. lligg, whom, while we differ with him, wo recognise as the most capable exponent of Labour views in this country, has set the Government an example in the matter of making a concrete proposal. Mr. Rigg's amendments would leave untouched the elements that it is desirable to remove. His triennial judge, his auto-matically-expiring award, his substitution of a monetary for a moral bond of obcdience to the Court's dccrees—all these will stili leave trades-unionism as free as air. Mr. ' lligg has offered no solution of the problem, and it is odd to'hear him denying to the critics of the Act a desire for industrial peace, when the " peace " that he aims-at as the soil from which Labour's salvation sliall spring is the peace of the Shipka Pass, or the peace that was described in the famous despatch' of the Russian governor who a couple of years ago issued the grim report that all was quiet in Warsaw.

Compulsory arbitration has been tried, and everybody admits that it has failed. Where, by tho way ,are those facile sneers, once so common with our merry doctrinaires, at the pedants who doubted whether a. statute, even a New Zealand statute, could abolish human nature or economic principles? Tho position is quite clear. The retention of the compulsory provisions of the Act and the permanent coercion of tho employer—the happy worker can defy coercion; everybody is saying so—will mean that it has been dclibsrately agreed to subect everything to trades-union rule. Nobody, surely, desires that result, excepting the trades-unionists and the trades-union agitators. It has been suggested that Me. Millar's dramatic speech on Tuesday was part of a carefully arranged plan to harden 1 up members in'their support of the amending Bill brought down last year. But Ministers need not build 1 largely upon the prospect of deluding the public with that measure. That they are not beyond the power of the Press and the public opinion that it voices has been demonstrated, pretty conclusively. They may, rely upon it that strategy will avail thorn nothing in this matter any longer. The Government cannot lack the courage' to admit that the Act is founded on error, sincc it has admitted its errors before now. The public must know 'without delay what the offer of "amendment" to. If it amounts only to a new way of creating the same condition of things' as exists to-day, the public will much prefer justice even at the cost of reversion to what Mis. Poole—who must really argue this point with Mr. Andrew Collins—calls the " brute force" of strikfas. Is tho Government going to frame its . action oh th'c principle that everything—the strike system as well as arbitration—is "■ brute force " that docs not give oorapleto license to the tradesunions?'