The Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1925. THE SHIPPING STRIKE.

Evening Star, Issue 19064, 6 October 1925, Page 6

The Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1925. THE SHIPPING STRIKE.

An extremely unfavorable spring has delayed the opening of the export season, but the cessation of shipping movement to Britain is causing serious anxiety to producers. All over the dominion co-operative dairy companies, farmers’ unions, A. and P. societies, and chambers of commerce are passing resolutions urging Government intervention in the shipping dispute, and in some cases guaranteeing supplies of free labor to man the ships should the Government give the word, just as years ago farmers came to the ports to load produce ■which the waterside workers refused to allow to be shipped. The warning issued by the banks that advances against exports ready for shipment must be cut down to a minimum so long as despatch remains a matter of uncertainty has brought the trouble right homo to the man on the land. In the North Island butter production lias begun for tlio season, and accumulations in storage are growing. Even were advances secured on these, the interest thereon becomes a serious charge on tho producers as the period of delay in realisation lengthens, while a restriction of advances means a heavy reduction of interim payments to factory suppliers. At Auckland Sir James Farr quoted figures showing the gravity of the position—already 4i million pounds’ worth of produce held up—■ and he was not exaggerating when he said the strikers had the whole community by the throat. The Government, he added, cannot stand idly hv and soe the country mined. Therefore since yesterday morning the Prime Minister has been closeted with representatives of the ship owners and the striking seamen. No doubt it was with some reluctance that this intervention took place, for tho dispute, per se, does not concern New Zealand. But our Government is in u similar position to that of a Power whoso territory is being devastated hy two belligerent armies which have encountered each other on it and have turned it into a battleground. Whatever action our Government may decide to take must be purely in the interests of self-defen re and self-preserva-tion; hut unfortunately it is liable to be misconstrued hy our own organised labor. There are signs that ekiss-eon-sciousness may outweigh such considerations as loyalty to one’s own country. New Zealand’s' right to live her own life and carry on the industries vital to her existence should not bo made subservient to a feeling of partisanship in a struggle for tho control of a British trade union. It cannot with any certainty be said what amount of sympathy exists among the New Zealand trade unionists with tho strikers, or what would be tho reaction by certain industrial organisations were the Government to intervene on the lines urged by tho producing interests. But tho possibility of such a 'step being immediately followed by tho declaration cf a state of war in local industry should not be minimised. Mr Coates’s choice of tho course to be followed must be made with full knowledge of what the immediate counter-stroke may be. His alternatives appear to ho to stand aside and see outsiders strangle the dominion, or to take a step involving the risk of sotting the two factions of industry in New Zealand at on® another’s throats. As to the latter risk, everything depends on how far New Zealand organised labor . subscribes to tho views being preached by Mr Oar rigan, the president of the Queensland branch of the Australian Seamen’s Union. Ho openly admits that congestion is part of the game which those fomenting tho strike are playing. Bitterly chagrined because the steamer Port Hardy has been moved from tho wharf at Brisbane, he has forbidden coal to be taken to her to keep her refrigerating machinery going, expressing tho hope that sho would have to bo towed back to the wharf with hor cargo rotten, together with some picturesque expressions concerning tho future welfare of the vessel’s engineroom staff.

There is now little doubt as to tlio origin of this shipping block. It is part of Moscow's campaign of hate and destruction against the British Empire. Moscow’s ideal system of government is not democracy, but an iron bureaucracy, the leading spirits in which need possess but one qualification—utter unscrupulousness. Business capacity, any sense of justice, any humanitarian feeling would be positive disqualifications for office. It seems nn insult to the intelligence of our own working classes that they should bo invited to paralyse their own industries for the sake of such an ideal, but so it is. Whatever step Mr Coates and hia Cabinet may decide to take will be a step for the preservation of this country’s existence and its democratic form of government, and against tho repulsive substitute which Moscow would press on us- He ought to bo able to command tho wholehearted support of tho entire community, quite irrespective of class. If he does not get it, those who oppose him will be shouldering a responsibility far greater even than his at the present crisis, great indeed though it certainly is.