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Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 566, 2 December 1915, Page 6

The Prime Minister's unequivocal and dignified reply to the threat of "industrial revolution" issued by the miners of the Point Elizabeth and Liverpool State collieries will commend itself to every person in New Zealand outside of a certain small and unruly section which labours under the delusion that it is "the people." It is extraordinary that a small minority should arrogate to itself the power of dismissing Ministers and dissolving Cabinets —for that, evidently, is what this Miners' Union implies when it declares that it is "determined to meet such a calamity as conscription by industrial revolution." There is the plain hint to Mr Massey and his colleagues to do as.the union says, or it will be the worse for them. Confusion of thought is displayed in the talk of the iniquity of conscripting "the flesh and blood of the working class," while failing to conscript the wealth of the rich—these men do not recognise that Parliament has to decide for or against conscription, and that Parliament is the voice of the delegates of the "working class" who, as the Prime Minister says, comprise 95 per cent, of the country's population. No matter how firm their faith in their political dogmas may be, these miners are not "the working class." They needed "the Prime Minister's blunt reminder that the Government of the country is still vested in an executive appointed by the will of the whole people—the people who are helping to carry out New Zealand's share in the war.