WATERSIDE DISPUTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21086, 21 January 1932, Page 9

WATERSIDE DISPUTE.

GOVERNMENT ACTION. HO VOLUNTEER LABOUR. REGULATION APPROVED. DISORDERS AT ADELAIDE. STRAIGHT TALK TO MEN. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received January 20. 10.45 p.m.) ADELAIDE. Jan. 20. Regulations under the Public Safety Preservation Act, having the effect of barring the employment of volunteer labour on the waterfront at Port Adelaide, were approved by the State Executive Council to-day, and will be gazetted. They restore preference to unionists and all the other privileges enjoyed under the Scullin Government, which arc directly in conflict with the ro.cent action of the Lyons Government. Other regulations approved to-day give wide powers to the police with regard to seditious publications, picketing and the possession of unlawful weapons. Mr. J. G. Latham, the Federal At-torney-General, in a statement covering the Port Adelaide waterside disorders, said the Government would not tolerate violence or threats of violence. The Government would not condone crime because it may have been initiated or provoked for industrial purposes. Such methods would not succeed with this Government. It was equally futile for the Waterside Workers' Federation to complain that the trouble arose from the employment of foreigners. The fact remained that the federation had more members of foreign origin in its ranks than any other union. The Government? however, would see that no unfair discrimination was exercised by the employers in this direction. Two ships are now idle as a result of the dispute between the Port Adelaide branch of the Seamen's Union and the Adelaide Steamship Company. The vessels are the Quorna and the Halpa. The crew of a third vessel has given notice. The central executive of the Miners' Federation has instructed the men employed at two Broken Hill collieries to cease work in sympathy with the Newcastle seamen, who declared the company's four steamers " black." Commenting on the South Australian Government's action in the Sydney Sun to-day, the editor-in-chief, Mr. Delamore McCay, describes it as of the gravest constitutional importance, in so far as it transcends any action by a State Government in contravention of the Federal authority since the formation of ithe Commonwealth. While the South Australian coup can be challenged constitutionally, he states, it is fraught with much graver potentialities, because it involves the livelihood and lives of large numbers of people. Direct and serious defiance of Commonwealth sovereignty has been attempted, and it remains to be seen whether the Federal Government will take up the challenge.