The Grey River Argus MONDAY, November 14, 1949. OPPOSITION MISREPRESENTATIONS

Grey River Argus, 14 November 1949, Page 4

The Grey River Argus MONDAY, November 14, 1949. OPPOSITION MISREPRESENTATIONS

pretending' 1 hex' want industrial harmony to continue —and conriarcd with other countries New Zealand has an admirable record—the National Party say they are going 1o restore the right to strike. The other day they talked of gaoling as a “remedy” for striking. -Nationalist propagandists here and elsewhere assert that it their Party were elected it would count upon Organised Labour becoming militant, ([noting in support Miss Howard’s statement that trade unions would not allow the Nationalists to put them back, but would be thereby pushed into industrial trouble. Indeed, Nation-, alist propaganda, in one page of a newspaper, asserts the Party would “protect” workers from “militants”, and in another page asserts “a test must come sooner or later”, the issue b dug who should run.the country. The Nationalists say in fact that our industrial peace is “uneasy”, and can only last a few weeks! This prediction, of course, presumes that the advent of a Nationalist regime would be the end of industrial peace, and yet the Opposition press alleges Miss Howard made a damaging reflection on the National Party! The fact appears to be that the Party’s. conception of “protection” for unions is simply one of provocation lor unions. Miss Howard has noted the fact that if unions were to be put. into a strait jacket by a Nationalist regime the job would ho delegated to a department under the leader's control, and not to the Labour Department. The. federation of Labour has pointed out that this policy would l)(‘ a contravention of the principles enunciated by the United Nations Organisation. The Dominion has iu actual practice had remarkable continuity of production for the past fourteen years, and it is a libel on the New Zealand workers generally for I he Opposition press h> deny that they are a genuine Lid ust rial democracy. To lend colour to the charge, it is alleged that the Labour Party and the Communist Party are engaged only in a sham fight, and that the Grime Minister ami his colleagues who have disavowed the Communistic philosophy and methods are not sincere. The public, especially the workers, ought, to bear in mind, the reason given for this charge of insincerity—which seems to be that the Government hitherto should have been as coercive of the workers and their organisations as the National Party say they would have been if they had had the opportunity. Had tliev held power, however, it ic probable that they would have taken credit for the comparative absence of industrial trouble which the country has enjoyed since 1935. The workers do not trust, the National Party, whose propagandists are nowise removing such distrust when they talk about there having been “ugly forces” in the ranks of the workers. The Opposition on its part is equally’distrustful of the workers, declaring them rwt to be producing as they should; to be possessed of more money than they ought to have; and also to be unfair in their preference for the forty-hour, five-day week. There is not the slightest doubt that, instead of defending’ ‘the right to strike, the Nationalists would treat strikers as criminals, mid claim that in so doing they were simply carrying out “the law”. They repeatedly exhibit a determination to wipe out. the distinction between criminal law and the industrial code. They have utterly failed to give a single proof that workers have taken industrial action without the sanction of the majority of their number. The best test is the conduct of the workers of the Dominion. They are with very few exceptions better disciplined than the workers of any other country in the world. On the other hand, it would doubtless require but a very brief term of Nationalist dictatorship and deflation to impoverish the -workers and provoke a. different spirit to that which has seen the Dominion prosper so greatly during the past fourteen years. The Opposition talks glibly of democracy in industry, but it is the last thing- they want. They stand for economic dictatorship to the wage earning class. They pretend to stand by social security and full employment, but the ■ Inirden of their agitation against ■ these and other measures of the -

Labour Government is manifested in no end of complaints against, the workers. If there is anything particularly ugly about the political controversy it is the barefaced attempt of capitalistic agitators to sow' dissention among the masses when the country is prosperous and is an example for the world in social justice.