The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1925. LABOUR AND STRIKES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19435, 22 October 1925, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1925. LABOUR AND STRIKES

At the beginning of the election campaign the Labour candidates had very little to say about the shipping strike, but the turn of events has made them bolder. Thanks to the spirited intervention of the Prime Minister, the ships are being got away, and now that producers and exporters are overcoming their troubles the Labour speakers evidently feel that they can risk something on the platforms. Mr. Glover, one of the visiting speakers at the Wanganui Opera House on Tuesday night, launched out in fine style on the subject of strikes, telling a thrilling story of the huge profits made by shipowners, and painting a pitiful picture of the seamen struggling on small wages. Mr. Glover even went the length of explaining what Mr. Holland would have done if he had been Prime Minister, the statement being in effect that Mr. Holland would have supported the seamen against the employers. It was scarcely worth while to bring Mr. Glover to Wanganui to tell us that. What Mr. Glover said, and what other Labour speakers are saying, is really quite beside the question of the strike so far as it concerns New Zealand. What happened was that seamen who had made a solemn contract in England broke it when they got to this country, and in breaking their contract they involved the people of this Dominion—industrialists as well as those engaged in production and commerce—in very serious loss and hardship. New Zealand has nothing to do with the cause of the illegal action taken by the seamen, but she has had everything to do with its effect. Labour thinks that the seamen did the right thing in making New Zealand suffer. The electors of New Zealand know what kind of treatment they would receive from Labour if they gave Labour a majority in Parliament. It is certainly surprising that Mr. Glover should have mentioned the wharf strike of 1913. He wished, of course, to be sarcastic when he said that that strike made the reputation of the Reform Party, but he will find that the memory of the electors is not as short as he fancies it is. Very many people well remember that the waterside strike of 1913 was the first great test to which Mr. Massey was submitted as Prime Minister. The watersiders set out to paralyse the whole of the Dominion’s industry and commerce, but in Mu. Massey’s resolute methods they found their match. The waterside strike certainly added much to Mr. Massey’s reputation aud to the Reform Party’s prestige. To-day the Reform Party stands, as it did in 1913, for law and order and fair dealing against lawlessness, destructiveness and class oppression. The fight to-day is between Reform and Labour, and Labour is on the side of those who break their word and plunder their fellow-citizens.