GOVERNMENT'S DUTY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19141, 6 October 1925, Page 8

GOVERNMENT'S DUTY.

INTERESTS OF DOMINION, STRIKE AND ITS RESULTS. STATEMENT BY A MINISTER. [BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON. Monday. The Minister for Lands, Hon. A. D. McLeod, had something to say regarding the shipping strike in his address at Carterton. "It will be expected of me that I should make some statement regarding the present hold-up in shipping," said the Minister. "This is a matter I hesitate to touch upon at the present juncture, more especially as to the imagined or real rights 'or wrongs of the contending parties, namely, the owners and the seamen. "I have no hesitation in stating, however, how tho position is viewed by the Government. The dispute is not our dispute, but the results are definitely ours. We are now starting upon a season which, with freedom of trade, gives every indication of being a fairly prosperous one, and with the prosperity of the primary producer must go the prosperity of the people as a whole. No more dangerous time for a complete hold-up of our overseas transport could possibly arise than at the beginning of our export season. Oar trading with Great Britain of recent years shows approximately £6,000,000 per month, and the cessation of the free circulation of such a large amount of ironev can have no other effect than to bring about hardship to all sections of the community, unemployment and all the disabilities which must result from it. "No Government can stand idly by and allow such a state of affairs to continue. The Government has made up its mind as to the policy it will pursue, but it wishes to give every opportunity to those who have left their work at a moment's notice and without any reason, so far as tills country is concerned, to consider their position seriously. I am afraid that the wisest counsels are not prevailing among those responsible for advising Labour in this country, and many seamen from overseas may have cause to regret the fact that they have been unwisely advised by men who are never satisfied unless creating industrial turmoil. "The Government has a duty not only to one section of the community, but to all sections, and, as I have indicated, it will not fail to carry out that duty to the letter."