Unease at Harsh Measures

Even the metropolitan newspapers are quietly warning the Government not to proceed.

Last Mondays NZ Herald threw out a warning:

"Mr Gordon clearly wishes to rebuild good industrial relationships, nationwide. But is the gulf which yawns between the will and the deed likely to be bridged by autocratic legislation? If policies are imprudent they will add to the problem"." and even the right-wing Dominion (last Friday) also commented:

"Goading them (Socialist Unity Party) and other dissidents into excesses is not in the country's interest, now or at any other time."

A confrontation is undoubtedly brewing. On all other occasions where the Government has taken on the trade union movement they have won handsomely. If they win this time, New Zealand workers may be in a similar position to those of Hitler's Germany or Mussolini's Italy - so bound up with regulations that they have no power to act against the increasingly fascist policies put forward by the Muldoon Government.