An Appeal to Moderation.

Let me close this long address with these few observations. It should be the aim of every country to prevent strikes, [unclear: ot] by severe pains and penalties, but [unclear: v] providing if it be possible such conditions of labour, and such a fair, promt and competent tribunal as will Secure to the workers all they can ever reasonably hope to attain by a resort to the blind force of a strike. This we are trying to provide, but no such provision [unclear: an] achieve its purpose if it has to encounter invincible prejudice or irrational [unclear: ntagonism.] Its best hope' lies in [unclear: nlsting] for a fair trial the moderation, intelligence and enlightened self-interest of the great body of the workers themselves.

And not only the best hope of the Act, out the best of this country as a Whole lies in that same moderation and intelligence.

The majority of our electoral rolls consist of men and women receiving (not on an average, but individually) £150 or less per annum, including [unclear: m] such majority the wives of such male workers. In their hands [unclear: w] destinies of this Dominion lie, and in my judgment our destinies could not be safer. For the sanity, the fairness and the industry of the great body of our workers is not to be judged by the silly demands and violent designs of a noisy few, since one might as well doubt the general sobriety of our whole people because a few are given to in temperance. We must not confound noise with numbers, as we are apt to do owing to widespread publicity the press gives to the vehemence of every little knot of discontents.