LABOUR TROUBLES

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 24850, 23 March 1944, Page 6

LABOUR TROUBLES

GOVERNMENT ATTITUDE

DEFENCE OF POLICY (5.8.) W ELTyIXGTON, Wednesday Defending the Government's attitude in dealing with industrial troubles the I'rime Minister, the Bt. Hon. P. Fraser, speaking in the Finance Bill debate in the"House of Representatives to-night, said it- was the only one in a democratic country. It was demonstrated throughout the United Nations that it was more difficult in wartime to conduct a country under democratic principles. With all the handicaps of democracy none of the Allied nations had done better than New Zealand in handling its industrial troubles. During the war there had been 120.000 man hours lost in New Zealand, 5,">00,000 in Britain and over 3,000,000 in Australia, continued Mr. Fraser. Had our losses on a population basis been similar to those of Britain our loss would have been 200,000 man hours and 786,000 if compared with Australia. "I want to pay a tribute to the trade unions and to the Minister of Labour, the Hon. P. C. Webb, who has been responsible for negotiations with the workers and who lias succeeded better than any other Minister of Labour in any of the Allied nations faced with similar difficulties," said Mr. Fraser.

It was regrettable that a section of the people and of the press should have been inferentially trying to set public opinion against the miners who had one of the most disagreeable jobs in the country. To judge from criticism one would think coal production had gone back, but the reverse was true. Production had risen from 1,800,000 tons in 1032 to 2,700.000 last year, while the output per man employed roso from ,'W7 tons to 517 tons over the same period. Fven when we regretted the miners' blindness to the path of duty in wartime we could not overlook the debt which we owed to them. It was the vast increase in industrial demands that accounted for the shortage of coal at present.