FIRM MEASURES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26773, 17 May 1948, Page 6

FIRM MEASURES

DEALINGS WITH WRECKERS SUCCESSFUL IN AUSTRALIA OPOTIKI, May 15. In two Australian States, Victoria and Queensland, the policy of appeasing industrial wreckers has beer abandoned, said Mr W. Sullivan, M.P., who recently visited Australia, in ar address, tOrnight. In Victoria a LiberalCountry Party Government headed by a young premier, Mr T. T. Hollwayi had been faced with a strike only s month or so after the elections. Possibly the Communists and Leftist Labourites thought they would do the same with the new Government as they had done with the previous Government. But they had met thoir match in Mr Hollway. In the face of an ultimatum from railway workers and seamen, the Government put through the Essential Services Bill, which empowered it to declare a state of emergency, and provided for a fine of £IOOO for union leaders who flouted its provisions. Mr Hollway had announced that, provided normal transport was restored immediately, he would not proclaim the Act without first consulting the Trades Hall Council. Trades Hall support of the strike collapsed next morning, and Victoria had since been free of major upsets. Since then a threat by a Communist trade union official to cut off .Victoria's coal supply* had been ,met by a retort from Mr Hollway that, if such happened, Victoria would pass the most severe penal legislation in modern political history” to smash the Communists. “ The strike in Victoria was followed a month or so later by a railway strike in Queensland, where there is a Labour Government,” iMr Sullivan went on. “Mr Hanlon, the Premier, was just as uncompromising as Mr Hollway had been. He told me that he said to the members of his party that, if he were to go out of public life, he would sooner go out with his head up than with his tail down. The strike lasted for nine weeks, but in the end the Government won,, as it must always'do when it is.a. strong Government with public opinion behind it.” In New Zealand, said Mr Sullivan the Government’s continued capitulation to- trouble-makers gave little ground for hope that the Labour Party in this country would ever take a stand against those whose object was to wreck industry. On the contrary he felt that, although the Government here was fond of making vague threats certain leaders of the Labour movement were secretly in. sympathy with the wreckers. It was time the Government decided which road it was going to take. " '