CLUTCHING AT STRAWS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16549, 13 May 1914, Page 8

CLUTCHING AT STRAWS.

The piteous attempt of tho Reformers to persuade the public that Sir Joseph .Ward and his friends encouraged tho “Red Feds” in their defiance of “law and order” during the recent industrial trouble has failed and failed miserably, hut they still go on repeating their infamous imputations in tho hope that tho strike may bo made “a vital political issue,” as they put it themselves, at tho approaching general election. No doubt tho leader of tho Opposition would l>e quite content to have the strike made a vital political issue, or even a vital party issue, at tho polls if all the facts were put fairly before the electors, but this is just what the Reformers want to prevent. For months they have been busy trying to distort the whole story. Now they say in reply to Sir Joseph

"Ward’s statement at Alexandra that there were no incipient stages of the strike. “ Anarchy,” they declare, “sprang up complete in a moment.” “ What tho Government had to deal with was an anarchical mob, led by advocates of arson, robbery and murder, and, even in the beginning, strong enough to sweep away tho police liko chaff and by violence establish a reign of terror on the wharves of the capital city.” Extravagant rubbish of this sort may have impressed the public four or five months ago when they were bitterly resenting the deplorable conduct of the strikers in Wellington and Auckland, but even then they had not forgotten that the men and the employers had met in conference under the presidency of the Prime Minister and that overyono had hoped for a peaceful settlement. They had a lively recollection of an ” incipient stage” when Mr Massey arranged for tho parties to meet at two o’clock one afternoon and then bounced out of the chair without making the slightest attempt at conciliation because one of tho employers’ representatives stated conditions which tho men wero not ready to accept. Some people may remember that the failure of this linal sitting of the conference was announced by one of tho local Government newspapers in a telegram timed as having been despatched from Wellington half an hotir before tho sitting began. This may have been simply another instance of “ intelligent anticipation,” but it certainly looked as if the Prime Minister had been particularly anxious that his party organ should not go wrong. In any case there was a full week when a strong Minister with an earnest desire for peace could have prevented the developments which plunged the country into nearly three months of industrial strife with all its attendant evils. Wo do not wish to make comparisons between living leaders which might appear invidious to some of Mr Massey’s friends, hut no one cap imagino Mr Seddon allowing tho unrest that prevailed in Wellington during the early days of October to drift into the most serious strike the country has ever known without doing a great deal more than was done by the present Prime Minister to bring about an honourable settlement. Whether the strike could or could not have been settled in a couple of days by the legislation proposed by Sir Joseph Ward must remain a moot point since Mr Massey was not “ big ” enough to accept a suggestion from a political opponent, but we believe ourselves that a great majority of tho men would have welcomed any reasonable'means of escaping from tho hopeless position into which they had been dragged much against their own sober judgment by their injudicious leaders. Tho whole facts of the strike viewed at this distance go to show, indeed, that if a Seddon had been at tho head of tho dominion’s affairs last year there would have been no strike and none of tho loss and inconvenience and suffering that arose out of tho trouble.