“LIKE VULTURES.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 493, 30 June 1932, Page 11

“LIKE VULTURES.”

Union Secretary Attacks Employers. ARBITRATION ACT DISPUTE. The opinion that the workers of New Zealand are being forced tc adopt more militant action was expressed this morning by Mr G. T. Thurston, chairman of the Trades Hall Committee, in replying to criticism of the arbitration system made by Mr 11. D. Acland, president of the .New Zealand Sheep* owners’ Federation. “ I am satisfied the workers do not want to fight, but if the circumstances demand it they will be forced to do so,” said Mr Thurston. “ Even a rat will fight when he is forced into a corner.” Other union secretaries were critical of Mr Acland’s statement that, “ if the author of the arbitration system knew the effect of what he had placed On the Statute Book in 1893 had had in 1932, he would wish he had never been in political life. The Act imposed upon New Zealand industry an immense burden of cost and restrictions.” Retarding Progress. “ In the first place, if the author of the system knew -what was happening to-day, lie would turn in his grave,” commented Mr Thurston, “for the reason that the amendments to the I.C. and A. Act are sending the country back to the state it was in when the Act was brought into being. In those I days there was sweated labour, and appalling conditions for female, male and child labour. The Act was introduced to eliminate all that, and now it is contended that those conditions will be re-introduced by the abolition of the compulsory clauses of the Act. Why was it that Mr Acland and his friends in 1913 forced the workers to come underneath the Act in order to keep them in subjection ? At that time the workers had decided on a different line of action because the employers of the Dominion were not handing back to them anything like a commensurate return for the services rendered, from the profits they were making for their employers. In order to quell that movement the Massey Government;., headed by the late Mr W. F. Massey, assisted the employers in an attempt to crush the new movement of the workers and force them back under the Act. Surely that was colossal argument that the Act was not serving the workers but the employers in the main at that period. “ Camouflaging the Issue.” “In order to camouflage the real issue and draw a red-herring across the track, Mr Acland refers to economic law and the law breakers. We also believe that the law breaker in this respect, which is the Employers’ Federation, will also be arrested per medium of its advocacy of inhumane law, which will eventually be resented most emphatically by all right-thinking people. Mr Acland and his party under the same theme of economic law, base all their contentions and legislation on overseas prices, ignoring the possibility of the wonderful markets within New Zealand, where there are a* present 70,000 uneemployed and their dependents compelled to beg for a living, when they should be, if the Government were competent, furnishing markets for New Zealand. Even as things are, about 60 per cent of New Zealand's products are consumed within the country. Harassing Laws. “Mr Acland seems not to wish the country to advance this way because he says: * One of the regre ttablc social results of the principles of compulsion as set out in the old Arbitration Act has been the unhealthy growth of big towns in New Zealand, for which at no time had there been anyl real economic necessity.’ I “ I don’t know how he can attribute that position to the Act,'* added Mr Thurston. “ The growth must have been in accordance with the development of industry. Apparently Mr Acland wants New Zealand for his own, and thinks that no one else should exist. If that is his view, then it beggars description. The reforms made by the present Government mentioned by Mr Acland are certainly beneficial to one class of the community only. For the remainder they are only a set of harassing, humiliating, and in many cases, degrading sets of statutes of law. How long the workers will be content to wallow in the mire I. cannot say, but no doubt they are being forced to adopt a more militant action. Some employers can be likened to a vulture waiting for its prey. The employers have the workers in subjection, and apparently they are going to kick them to death. That is what Mr Acland means; his statement cannot mean anything else.” (Mr Acland’s statement 5s reported on page 4.)