MR CURTIN APPALLED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25444, 27 January 1944, Page 5

MR CURTIN APPALLED

WAR EFFORT SABOTAGED (Rec. 0.30 a.m.) CANBERRA, Jan. 26. t “I am appalled at the maltreatment of the war effort on this Australia Day by Australian workers who have put their own grievances on higher priority than the services which are essential to maintain the fighting man at the front.” In making this statement to-day, Mr Curtin was referring to the transport hold-up in Sydney and Newcastle, and to the fact that 21 coal mines were idle. The Prime Minister added that the striking transport workers and miners would be prosecuted, and if they were convicted their wages would be garnisheed. “ I know that certain workers have been working under strain, but neither this nor any other Government at the present stage of the war can ■ /reduce the strength of the army to meet all the demands that various groups of industry have for man-power. It staggers me that men in the metropolitan transport system should have decided not to observe the Government’s direction to resume work. This is lawlessness naked and unashamed. Their action provides no remedy for their disabilities, but in effect means that they present an ultimatum to the Government as if they were as much the enemies of the Australian nation as those who have organised force roajeure against it and against whose aggression this nation has ‘pledged itself irrevocably. “This is true, too, of the coal miners who are not working,” said Mr Curtin. “ Some of the reasons why these mines are idle are without any semblance of justification. The Government has done its best to provide reasonable relief for all sections of the public, but the situation that confronts me today is one in which I have either to subordinate the interests of the war to the claims of pressure groups or take the requisite steps to change this present deplorable situation. One thing at least is. clear—the Government, having applied the law, will enforce it, and if it cannot enforce it, then it ceases to be the kind of Government the people of this country could respect and, being unable to respect, should no longer tolerate.”