The Christchurch Star. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1929. WHAT WILL ROTHBURY LEAD TO?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18946, 17 December 1929, Page 8

The Christchurch Star. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1929. WHAT WILL ROTHBURY LEAD TO?

FEELING IS RUNNING SO HIGH in New South Wales at the moment that almost any kind of violent situation might develop out of the Rothbury affair. The very fact that there is a Labour Government in the Commonwealth and an anti-Labour Government in New South Wales must tend to intensify the determination of both sides, and incidentally the bitterness of the struggle. It has been confidently prophesied for years past that there would be no clearing up of the industrial tangle until something very like civil war occurred. No doubt this is an extravagance, but it indicates the strength of current feelings and the sharp division between organised employers and organised labour. For a parallel one has to go to the Pennsylvania coalfields, where for years a veritable “ little war ” was carried on by the miners on one side and the State Government on the other. With all its multitudinous strikes, Australia has not yet been as bad as Pennsylvania was, but there is no doubt that the*Australian industrial situation has long been shaping towards a trial of strength characterised by violence. It may be that the great test is now at hand. The State Government cannot possibly recede without surrendering its whole authority, and Labour, on the other side, is threatening to involve the whole Commonwealth in a general strike. The position is utterly deplorable, and in the present state of feeling a compromise seems to be quite out of the question. Indeed, there is reason to think that a compromise might be a worse calamity than a struggle, because any weakness on the part of the State Government would give proportionately increased strength to the militant Communist element that is endeavouring to take charge of the Labour movement in Australia. The clash that has occurred at the Rothbury mine may, of course, prove to be the end of violent methods, but there is very grave reason to fear rather that it is only the beginning. THE CHRISTMAS “ STAR,” IN ISSUING its Christmas Number to-day, the “ Star ” presents to its readers a paper which it hopes will convey something of the spirit of Christmas. The season calls for a remembrance of old times and of the ever lovely legendry that grew up simply then. This is also a holiday season, and in the pages of the Christmas Number of the “ Star ” there will be found suggestions of some of New Zealand’s holiday joys. In the “ Star ” Christmas Number competitions the photographic section was numerically strong, and the result, as far as the prizes were concerned, was highly satisfactory except in the animal studies. In the literary section the first prize poem by Mr Charles Oscar Palmer, of Kaikoura, is a particularly tine one. “ South, South-eastward Ho ” has in it something of the adventurous urge of the early days that led those who broke new trails in this country, where the seasons are reversed. With this issue we wish our readers once more “ A very merry Christmas.” THE LOSS OF THE MANUKA. DISMAY AT THE LOSS of the s.s. Manuka is tempered by the welcome news that the whole of the passengers and crew have been landed safely. Disasters to shipping on the New Zealand coast have been painfully frequent throughout the history of the Dominion, but of late years, happily, passenger vessels have figured very infrequently in accidents such as those that shocked the whole community in the early days. Safety at sea, indeed, has come to such a point of perfection that the grounding or foundering of a passenger vessel seems almost unthinkable, and yet these accidents do happen, as we have seen quite recently in the case of the Riverina on the comparatively safe Australian coast, and the Manuka on the more dangerous coast-line of New Zealand. In neither case, fortunately, was there any loss of life. We in New Zealand, who are closely bound up with maritime things, well know the risks that are run by those who go down to the sea in ships, and there will be a feeling of deep gratefulness—deeper if possible because of the season of the year—at the reassuring news that has come regarding the safety of the passengers and crew of the Manuka.