“THEIR SHIELD”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21816, 12 September 1945, Page 7

“THEIR SHIELD”

CLASS BITTERNESS GOVERNMENT M.P’S AN OPPOSITION CRITIC (P.R.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 12. The accusation that the Government, through its actions, had assisted in promoting ill-feeling between employers and employees was made by Mr. E. B. Corbett (Opo„ Egrnont) in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon when speaking in the Budget debate. Mr. Corbett said the question of better industrial relations was inseparably bound up with the expansion of industry in New Zealand. Dr. Hare, an industrial research officer, had stated that the State should not enter into discussions between employers and employees, and he thought that an excellent statement.

Mr, Corbett said he thought the Government, through its organisation, was entering into such discussions and attempting b,v every means in its power to prevent good feeling existing between employers and employees. He would scrap some of those inquisitorial and inspectorial departments the Government had set up and which created discord.

Government members, by their outbursts. had shown that class distinction, class bitterness and ill-will were their refuge and their shield as politicians, and that the welfare of the people was a secondary consideration to them. Strike of 1913 Recalled

Mr. A. G. Osborne (Govt., Onehunga) said that many people of New Zealand would remember some of the efforts made by the National Party to improve industrial relations between the workers and employers, particularly round about 1913, when the olive branch that was used was a baton to smash the heads of the worker. Mr. W. S. Goosman (Opp., Waikato): It wasn’t the workers they used them on. It was the agitators.

Mr. Osborne said he believed better industrial relations was something for which to strive, and that it was bound up with the development of industry and the Dominion. It was a sentiment that, should be encouraged, but when the member for Egrnont suggested that, because the Government had intervened from time to time when industrial strife had occurred and that that method of endeavouring to bring about a settlement should not be persevered with, he wondered where the logic and reasoning power of the member were getting him. The motive of the Government was an honest and genuine desire to solve the problems that unfortunately arose between the employing and employed classes.

He regretted the attack made by Mr. Corbett on a section of the civil service —inspectors whose duty it was to police certain regulations to ensure that the law was complied with.