NEWS from one hundred years ago: MAKE AN OUTLAW OF EVERY STRIKER

‘In these days ... the turbulent spirit of Bolshevism permeates the world,’ editorialises one of many conservative country dailies, the Rangitikei Advocate. Late last century the government legalised working-class unions. What has been the upshot? ‘It gave legal standing to combinations of men, nominally to safeguard the interests of workers, but really to enable them to be exploited by agitators and used to influence politics. The power thus given has frequently been used arrogantly, and to the detriment of the interests of the people.’ Unions have become ‘a power that threatens the very existence of Government while in the meantime defying it.’ The Rangitikei Advocate, like many conservative voices, wants workers to be denied the right to go on strike. A law should be passed ‘making an outlaw of every striker whose action in holding up industry or commerce is equivalent to an attack on the public interests.’
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Rangitikei Advocate, 17 November 1920