The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 1917. THE LABOUR UNREST

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13463, 18 April 1917, Page 4

The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 1917. THE LABOUR UNREST

It is disquieting to realise that the industries of the Dominion are at the mercy of a cabal of irreconcilable and unscrupulous malcontents and extremists who are evidently determined to exert their influence to paralyse trade and industry for the accomplishment of their own nefarious purposes, and to impose hardship and suffering upon all classes of the community for no reason at all. The "go slow" policy which has been in force in the coal mines for the past couple of months was the emanation of these agitators; it has had the result of almost paralysing trade and industry, and apparently there is no way out. There is every reason to believe that the policy is no recent conception, but that it is part of a plan of campaign incubated early in the war, for the furtherance of which emissaries have since been actively employed in cunningly and with subtlety sowing discord and fostering discontent. Now they consider the time is ripe for action, and they are about to put their plans into execution. We are fully satisfied that the trouble is of far graver significance than a mere question of wages or working conditions, and that something more effective than persuasion and smooth words will have to be called into requisition ere the final phase is reached. We cannot think that the majority of the miners in the Dominion favour the policy, but it is useless to ignore the fact that a very large number of men have volunteered for the front, and that means that an undue proportion of those who remain are men affected with the doctrines and theories of the Cosmopolitan school, who regard every other nation as superior to their own and who have more love for the alien than for their own people. We sincerely hope that the yisit of the Hon. Sir James Allen and Hon. W. D. S. Mac Donald will have the effect of ending the trouble, but must confess that we are not very sanguine, for we believe the miners will regard the visit as evidence of weakness. The representatives of the miners have ere now expressed the view that the fact that they were granted exemption was a proof that the Government was seeking to pander to them, and the spectacle of the Cabinet Ministers paying them a special visit and asking them to work may strengthen that view. The situation is one in which the Government should take a strong stand, and declare that the men must either work or light. If they refuse to "do their bit" in the mines, then they must go to the trenches. The regulations regarding the employment of only competent miners could be suspended during the war. There are plenty of loyal citizens who would be ready to win coal from the mines under expert supervision in order to keep the transports and essential industries of the Dominion running during the period of hostilities. If the authorities showed a firm and uncompromising front, the miners would soon realise that the game was up and recognise the folly of persisting in their wholly indefensible attitude.