“THE BIG STICK."

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 18 January 1927, Page 6

“THE BIG STICK."

The Wanganui watcrsidors yesterday gave another ■of the ever-recurring illustrations of the readiness of a. section of labour to wield the big stick on the slightest provocation, or. as more is the case, without provocation or excuse, but merely upon an opportunity presenting itself. A Press message published yesterday stated that a -whole gang of watersiders, numbering 38 men, walked off a ship they were working because one of their number had been dismissed for absenting himself without leave. It is true that the man left his work to vote, and that the right to knock off work to vote is dear to the heart of every watersider. 'So highly does he value this right that -he will think nothing of leaving a 10,000-ton steamer with hatches open and cargo piled high on the wharf while he and his fellows hold a stop-work meeting to decide some weighty question known only to his fellows and to the union. The pity of it is that this greatly cherished “right” is of no practical use to the individual watersider. He is bound by the decisions of those higher up in the scale of unionism, and he knows before he stops work to attend a meeting that he is only falling into line to receive orders from the high command. It is little wonder that suspicion of the watersiders 5 and seamen’s motives has grown into the certainty in the minds of other sections of the community that those workers are not concerned so much about their precious “rights 55 as they are about their power to inflict annoyance, inconvenience and loss upon other sections of the community whose interests, they are pleased to believe, clash with their own. Examples of ruthless disregard for any interests but their own by those who profess to set such store by the right of all to live, must cause the few true idealists in the Labour movement to despair greatly, but they serve a useful purpose in warning the community at large of the lot that would most certainly be theirs if the watersiders 5 rule were not confined to the waterfront.