The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1942. WAIKATO COAL STRIKE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLII, Issue 22378, 16 September 1942, Page 4

The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1942. WAIKATO COAL STRIKE

THE Acting-Prime Minister, in his stinging denunciation of the coal miners on strike in the Waikato, has said that the attitude of the men in refusing to produce coal at this lime “had exactly the same effect as the torpedoing of a New Zealand supply ship by the Japanese on the high seas, and the same reaction for the public as though the sinking of the vessel had been done by a New Zealand bomber plane with a fifth column crew.” The Minister of Labour, the Hon. P. C. Webb, has said that the men “refused to heed the advice of their own national organisation or to recognise their responsibility and duty to the country in its hour of peril. That could only be interpreted as a challenge to the Slate.” The Minister of Railways, the Hon. R. Semple, whose department has had to take drastic cuts in the North Island railway services, said that the strikers “treated the Government’s appeal to reason with contempt and declared civil war on lhe community.”

These are not extravagant criticisms of the conduct of the men. They have been made by leaders conscious of their responsibility to the people, hut so far the strikers remain unmoved. They have challenged the authority of the State, and the time they have chosen to do this is that in which the Dominion stands in the greatest peril it has ever known. As Mr Sullivan has rightly mentioned, soldiers are fighting and dying in the Pacific area; these men, among them our American Allies, expect that New Zealanders should be ready to play their maximum part in the war, but they cannot do that if railway transport is impeded by shortage of coal. A statement issued to the Waikato miners on Sunday revealed that there is one week’s supply of New Zealand coal in the North Island and five weeks’ supply of Newcastle coal. Production, therefore, must be maintained at the highest level in the interests of national security, yet there are men who have so scant an appreciation of their duty to the State, and to their compatriots, that they are prepared to let coal production drop to a dangerous level because they have had some inconsequential difference with their employers. The matter in dispute is irrelevant, for the strikers have ample means for having legitimate grievances investigated. Where injustice existed it would be removed; the strikers know that, but they have chosen to go their own lawless way and the question then arises as to how their challenge is to be answered. Mr Sullivan, in his statement on the strike, asked the people to support the Government in the measures it may consider necessary to take in meeting the situation created by the Strike,. Jle hinted that these might entail further deprivations for the people. It is fairly obvious that coal consumption will have to be further reduced if the Waikato mines remain idle, but the people will feel that the hmW determined efforts should be made to induce the men to return to work, and on the Government’s terms. If, as Mr Semple says, civil war has been declared on the community, it is scarcely just that people who have not offended should be asked to accept new deprivations before the Government has exhausted all its power to bring the mines back into production. The Government’s first act should be to make the strikers aware of the State’s authority and power. The question, according to a statement by the Hon. S. G. Holland, has now passed into the hands of the War Cabinet. It is no longer one for the Minister of Labour or the Minister of Railways. This should make it easier for the proper measures to be taken. It has been mentioned by the Minister of National Service that many of the strikers have had their military service postponed because they are engaged in essential production. Such men should be given one brief opportunity to return to work. If they refused to accept it they should be compelled without delay to assume their military responsibilities. Men on active service have no chance to lay down arms because conditions are not to their liking, and there is no reason why men exempt from military service should be in a privileged position, particularly so when they are well paid for the service they are rendering to the country. The Government need have no featconcerning public reaction to measures, however stern, which are taken to end an intolerable situation.