A REMARKABLE STATEMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 7 November 1913, Page 4

A REMARKABLE STATEMENT.

in our issue this morning,"we publish a remarkable statement made by the Strike Committee, otherwise the Federation of Labour. This statement is so manifestly designed to mislead the public, that it cannot fail to defeat its own object. The assertion that the presence in Wellington of special constables from tho country is responsible for the outbreaks of lawlessness, is positively ludicrous. These men have done nothing to pre yoke disorder. They went to Wollingtou at the urgent request of the authorities, who were hopelessly unable to cope with the terrorising mob. They have done nothing more than assist iii maintaining _ law and j order. If the mob was not. intent on violence, if it was not determined to hold up the services of the couutry 1 by force, why should it object to mer.' being present on horseback, armed with batons? The special constables are not there to destroy human life or property. They are in the litv with the solo object of protecting I those who desire to work, and to [ save people from-starvation. Had it not been for the presence of these country contingents in the city, trade would have been held up for an indefinite period. With the dispute between masters and men,, the constables have nothing to do. There is a special tribunal, set up at the request of the workers themselves, for dealing with such disputes. And if tho men will not avail themselves this tribunal, that is their own look out. The country will not permit them to paralyse industry to gratify tho whim of their revolutionary leaders. The statement that special constables have written the Strike, Committee, asserting that they have been taken to Wellington under fal.:o pretences, is, we venture to say. a deliberate concoction. The continuance of the men in barracks is >n itself a denial of the truth of such a statement. The intimation that ".he strikers are not in sympathy with tho act., of violence perpetrated since tlio strike began, may also be taken wit a a grain of salt. If they have not actually incited' the mob to violence, their loaders have made speeches of such an inflammatory character as to provoke outbreaks of lawlessness.