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Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 118, 14 February 1944, Page 4

Industrial disputes and stoppages of work —they are by no means identical —were somewhat prevalent in the Commonwealth when the delegation of New Zealand Ministers was there, so they would have had an opportunity to study the methods of the Federal Ministry in this respect. Mr. Curtin gave the transport strikers in Sydney and the coal miners in New South Wales a warning that may sound somewhat strange to New Zealand ears, but strongly reminiscent of the statement made by Mr. Holland when he ■ resigned from the War Cabinet. The Federal Prime Minister said: The Government, having applied the law, will enforce it; and if it cannot enforce it, then it ceases to be the kind of Government that the people of this country can respect, and being unable to respect should .no longer tolerate. That is plain enough, and ns the law must bo upheld has had the support of the Australian people. Commenting on the Prime Minister’s statement a Melbourne journal said: “A simple declaration of the Government’s intention to enforce the law inflexibly is more effective than tearing a passion to tatters and reproaching the strikers with a storm of whirling words.” That, too, will tend to recall some impassioned declarations made by various Ministers here from time to time, and their reproaches, so quickly forgotten when if came to action. But the frank statement made by Mr. Curtin will afford a standard by which the New Zealand Government can be judged, although probably many people, having seen both failure, and strong disinclination on the part of the Ministry here to enforce the law, will have reached the conclusion that it has already ceased to be “the kind of Government that the people . . . can respect, and being unable to respect should no longer tolerate.”