PEACE IN INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20105, 16 November 1928, Page 11

PEACE IN INDUSTRY.

" PREPARE FOR WAR." AN EMPLOYER'S ADVICE. Speaking at the annual meeting of tho Employers' Federation in Adelaide recently tho president, Mr. E. 11. Rakewell, said the chief feature of the year had been strikes. A comparatively small handful of men on the waterfront should never he allowed to hold up the trade of tho country liy violence. They had been hearing a good deal about a peace conference, hut it was useless to talk peace unless both sides wanted peace. "Until a few weeks ago," Mr. Bakewell continued, "1 certainly never expected to see willing workers assaulted merely because they wanted to work in Melbourne. I saw men hammered in tho streets by cowardly ruffians, who wero believed to bo strikers. There is no doubt that the arrangements made by employers to protect men who had takon out licences were very bad. "It is quite evident that if peaceable citizens want to carry on their business tlioy must resist when extreme provoeatian is given, and the best way to preserve peace is to prepare for war We are less likely to have industrial troubles if we let it be known that we are prepared to resist, and are determined to carry on our business according to the laws of the country, and not according to the ideas of foreign agitators." *

Mr. Hakewell said it was very difficult to talk peace while arbitration courts were in existence The position between employers and employed was worso to-day than ever it had been. Employers hesitaiod to take on big works, bocause they never knew when alterations in pay and further concessions might be made by courts. The average educated employer, b.V, virtue of his training and experience, had acquired reason, and he endeavoured to deal tactfully and equitably with his' employees.