CANTERBURY AND STRIKE.

Press, Issue 14828, 20 November 1913, Page 6

CANTERBURY AND STRIKE.

Now that the men on strike in Lytteiton have shown that they will resort to violence to prevent the opening of the port for trade, and that strong steps must be taken to prevent their violence from being successful, it may be as well to state afresh tho issues involved in the trouble. The, Federation of LaDour is not fighting, or even pretending to fight, for the remedying of any of those grievances which always command sympathetic consideration by the public. It is bent merely upon enforcing its claim to monopoliso tho control of organised labour and to run it on a basis of bad faith. The necessity that this claim he resisted may perhaps be better understood, if ono considers what the situation would ho if tho Federation were to beat down the community. In the first place, it would have been established, in such a case, that crime and violence are the best weapons with which to fight for any movement, political, social, or industriaf, and that a mob can triumph over tho laws which the community has made for itself. The dreadful evil ,of such a result is obvious enough. But what of industry itself? Could industry Bourish, could it even go on, if the new and lawless Labour Trust could at any moment tear up every agreement forced upon the employers of labour? Industry would languish and lapso into ruin nnder euch conditions. As Sir George Askwith put it in his report on the Duhlin dispute, "no community could exist if resort to "the 'sympathetic' strike became the " general policy of trade unionism," and the policy of the sympathetic strike —based on the plea that "an in"jury to one is an injury to all"—is the cardinal policy of the Federation. And what of those organised. workers who are opposed to the Federation and who desire to work under the Arbitration Act? A victory for the Federation would mean the extinction of all labour competition with the party of torn agreements and broken bottles, and the consequential extinction of the freedom of the workingman. The Federation is fighting for its life.by criminal methods, and the community roust fight for its lifo also by the lawful means it has provided for itself. Tho defeat of tho Federation will defeat no good cause, but will deal a. crushing blow at an evil body of industrial doctrine. Jj, is inconceivable that the community will at this stage make surrender to mob violence, and it is the duty of every good citizen to rally to ehe support of law and order.

Wellington and Auckland have furnished the people of Canterbury with shining examples of what public spirit can do and of how it should do it. Tho strikers and striko sympathisers in Wellington, although they had often enough had warnings of the power of a community determined to defend its rights, refused to believe that a force of special constables could repress disorder. We havo all seen that as soon as they wore thoroughly organised the special constables in Wellington and Auckland very quickly restored order and made the cities safe for law-abiding citizens. If the strikers and their friends in Lytteiton and Christchurch havo not learned the lesson taught by the experience of the northern ports, they must be made to learn it. In common with everyone else outside tho ranks of those who support the Federation, we sincerely wish that the maintenance of order and the opening of the port for trade may he possible without any of the distressing conflicts upon which the disorderly mobs in Wellington and Auckland insisted. In Wellington the special constables have come forward from all sections of tjie community. Merchants- labourer, shop assistants- doctors, lawyers, profes-

sional men and tradesmen havo enrolled, and are working together with the good fellowship evoked by tho challenge delivered by the common enemy of all. Lytteiton is the last of the principal ports remaining to he opened, and Canterbury owes it to the other provinces to fall into line, and to itself to demonstrate that it is as sensible of its duty and as well able to insist upon its rights as the rest of New Zealand. When the results achieved are equal to the results achieved in the other ports, the moral effect will bo enormous. There must bo no weakening, for any want of courage and firmness would ho disloyalty to those others who havo so manfully stood up for the right of the public to require good faith in industry and to carry on its business whatever a lawless and arrogant minority may do.