GOVERNMENT DEFIED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 21, 22 December 1944, Page 5

GOVERNMENT DEFIED

AUSTRALIA’S GRAVE CRISIS“FIFTH COLUMN ACTIVITY’ (N.Z. Press Association.—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) :,7.; SYDNEY, Dec. 21. Australia’s most serious internal crisis of the war has been precipitated by a decision which has been . .. made by the central council of the , Miners’ Federation to defy the T'Tf Commonwealth Government by instructing its members to take 16 ■ - * days’ Christmas holidays and to ~ continue protest strikes on the garnishee issue.

Yesterday a resolution was adopted by the conference of the Australian Council of Trades Unions, with only a single dissentient voice, pledging lull support by the unions for the Government’s coal policy and suggesting the appointment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry of unlimited scope into the coalmining industry. Delegates from the Miners’ Federation were among those who voted for the resolution. A statement issued late last night by the miners’ central executive, two oi: the three members of which had earlier supported the A.C.T.U. resolu- . tion, declared: “In no circumstances is a change in the central council’s decision possible. We are impelled to direct all members of the federation to carry out to the letter decisions taken by the miners’ central council at its recent special meeting.” In spite of the Government’s sub-,,;,, stimtial majority in both Houses of ___ Parliament some Federal Ministers are reported to believe that the fato of the Curtin Administration is in the balance. LITTLE SUPPORT FOR MINERS.

A special meeting of the emergency committee or the A.C.T.U. today issued a statement indicating that the miners can expect little support from the other unions in their defiance of the Government: ‘lf the miners want to subscribe to industrial anarchy they will imt receive the official support of the A.C.T.U., which has endeavoured all through to bring about appeasement between tiie miners and the Government to the advantage of the miners,” said the A.C.T.U. secretary (Mr A. E. Monk). “If the miners want to burn all their boats behind them they must accept the consequences of their folly.” The Federal Cabinet will hold a special meeting to consider the coal situation, which is generally conceded to be fraught with calamitous jiossibilities.In spite of a statement today by the miners’ general secretary (Mr G. \V. S. Grant) that the situation could still be retrieved if the miners and the Federal Government would get together between now and January 2, a general; teeling persists that the obstinate attitude of the miners’ governing body must cause a major breakdown in coal supplies. Even if Some reconciliation between the miners and the Government is effected during the holiday period it will bo almost impossible to get the men back to work at the end of 10 . days on January 2. Most of the miners will leave on their vacation tomorrow, and many of them have booked at holiday resorts till January 8. The Government is committed to prosecutions against miners who take more than 10 clays’ holiday leave. : The resulting lines must end m garnishees on wages—and the miners arc showing their determination to fight garnishees by refusing to work in mines where these are being levied. 1 Six collieries in New South Wales were idSe today on the garnishee issue, swelling the total coal losses over garnishees to 52,000 tons so far.

DWINDLING COAL STOCKS The Commonwealth will face tire year 1945 with less than half the coal stocks with which it began 1944. The Minister of Transport (Mr Ward) revealed today that the New South Wales, Victorian and South Australian railways systems have little more than a week’s supply of coal.

In all quarters there is evidence of a hardening of opinion against the miners. The Deputy-Leader of the Federal Opposition (Mr Harrison) said today that the Government must face the problem of disciplining “the most dangerous fifth column activity that has yet come to our Democracy.” Public tolerance toward the miners had long since exceeded the limits of endurance, and the nation waited with grave concern for the Government’s next move, he said. “The possibilities of the next few weeks in this country are gravely disturbing,” says the Sydney Daily Mirror in a leading article today, “but one tiling is clear above all others. The will of the people as expressed through the democratic organisation of government must he obeyed whatever that might involve. In the circumstances only one course is open to the Government. It must exert its authority. It must enforce the law and the will of the people.

“It eannot be defied by a small minority of miners playing with insurrection, else law in Australia would cease to have any' effect, and anarchy and chaos would stalk the land. The decision of the miners’ central executive amounts to an open act of insurrection—an open declaration of war on the trade union movement of Australia, on the Government and on Australia’s status as a nation.”