"CALAMITOUS"

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 107, 6 May 1926, Page 9

"CALAMITOUS"

NEW ZEALAND LABOUB VIEW.

Reference to the coal strike at Home is made in an editorial in th« "New Zealand Worker." •

"The Worker" gays:—"Nothing but the word calamitous can describe the lock-out—for this is what it is—of a million British miners last Saturday. For the Government to have allowed so appalling an event is truly, as Mr. Banisay Mac Donald said, a. 'crime against society.' If ever the private ownership of a great industry was condemnable as disastrous and-cruel, it is now, when, at the whim and solely for the profit of the mine and royalty owners, the interests of the nation and of millions of miners and their wives and children are ruthlessly being sacrificed. . . . To prove tho intellectual bankruptcy of these captains of industry [the ownersj, it is only necessary to add that not until two-thirds of the miners had been locked-out did they present definite claims for negotiation, and of these one—increased hours—had been recommended as unnecessary and harmful by the Commission!

"Contrast their selfish and unreasoning position with that of the British. Miners' Federation and the Trades Union Congress to see which is the more concerned with the public interest. From the outset these great organisations of Labour have insisted that the mining industry should be a public property, that its management should be directed wholly to • the service of the community, and that no person who does not perform useful labour in it shall be allowed to drain the wealth it produces to the detriment of its workers. They have expressed their readiness to consider all the difficulties of the industry once the Government legislates the reconstructive recommendations in the Commission's report. . . .

. . . The anxiety of the miners for a public organisation of their work m which they shall join as administrators, is the result of the treatment they have suffered at the hands of private enterprise, and but the barest statement of their conditions is needed to show that the present system has no excuse for a continuance of its existonce. The miners produce 250,000;000 tons a year, or moro than the market can absorb. Apart from agriculture, theirs is the greatest industry in the country, yet they are villainously housed, their wagos are a scandal, and their conditions of work a national disgrace. Every year over 1000 are killed while coal-getting, and from 100,000 to 200,000 arc injured and maimed. "It is becoming increasingly clear that the capitalist classes and the Governments that represent them, are unfit to control the destinies of any people, and no more convincing evidence of this could be offered than the ruinous development now threatening Great Britain. Shortsighted and' avaricious, they subordinate every interest to their pwu personal ambitions, and when, iv desperation, their tormented victims revolt, they turn out the military and indulge in stupid provocations. Such men are a danger to the community, and must be characterised as its enemies. And what do their base policies of browbeating and starvation amount to? If triumphant, simply to this; The slavery of their own countrymen. Do they think for ono moment that singing the National Anthem will make this palatable to Englishmen, and that stability will be reached when the masses have been subjected to poverty and injustice? They are doomed to a rude awakening if they do." The article concludes:—"We have faith in the brave miners of Great Britain and in its powerful and enlightened movement of organised Labour. Their unity and sacrifice encourage hope for the future. By what means wo can, let us help tUem in their struggle to rid their native land of the evils of poverty and disorder, and to build up :t society in which Labour .shall rule for the advantage of all."

Mr. P. Eraser, M.P., informed a "Post" reporter that the views contained in (he article expressed the views of (he New Zealand Labour Parly in regard i.o the trouble at Home,