THE BARRIER TO AGREEMENT.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14829, 21 November 1913, Page 8

THE BARRIER TO AGREEMENT.

Outside the ranks ot the siipiwrtcrs of the Federation of Ixibour, tho only sympathisers with the nre those who think that somehow it will pny the Opposition to hinder the Government and tho public authorities in their defence of the lives, the property, and the liberty of the public, and those la small minority, certainly) who imagine that the employers and the general public ought to {jive way. The latter claims will probably change their views if they will rofUct upon the facts of the .situation. The employers would gladly Jiav-e made terms with the Federation long ago if they could have felt that any settlement arrived at would bo respected. But the Federation leaders have long proclaimed that the essence of the policy of "direct action," which is the Federation's cardinal policy, is a complete disregard for agreements. "To hell with, agreements" i:> their watchword; an agreement is valid only so loug as it suits tho workers: and '"'the workers are always

" right," whatever they do. This being so, how can the employers possibly enter into any agreement with the Federation excepting an enforceable agreement, and an agreement which cannot be broken without involving the guilty party in heavy moral and material punishment? How long could any ordinary settlement last? The employers might purchase a few weeks' or a few months' respite, but the trouble would begin all over again. Like Mr Larkin, of Dublin, the Federation leaders claim that their mission is to stir up class war, to create and maintain discontent., and to keep the unonists "solid" in the bolief that employers and employees are natural enemies. Such a divine mission, as has been said in connexion with the Dublin strike, "is hardly likely to be "terminated by written agreemente" — especially when, as the Federation of Labour declares, every agreement may be "tossod to hell" by the Federation, although it must be dbserved, even after its destruction, by the employers.

We quoted .yesterday from Sir George Askwith'e report on the Dublin dispute, to the effect that no community could exist if (as has been the case in New Zealand so far as the Federation is concerned) the sympathetic strike became the general policy of trade unionism. Sir George Askwitb. also pointed out that, under Mr Imrkin's rule, ' ; even collective agreements signed on '•behalf, of employers' and men's or- " ganisations, a provision of which "was ,! that no stoppage of work should take " placo without discussion and due '■notice, were entirely disregarded." It could not be expected, he added, that employers could continue their business if they were liable to constant interruptions in defiance of agreements. The undoubtedly evil conditions of the Dublin poor gave Sir George Askwith an excuse for some words on the strikers' behalf. He suggested that the unions would lose their liberty if asked to undertake not to remain under Mr Larkin's organisation. The "Spectator" makes short work' of this plea:—

This (it says) is in plain language an evasion of the issue. When a suffragette is sent to prison for burning down houses, her individual liberty is violated. When she is let out on tiekct-of-leave, subject to an undertaking that she will not advocate further crimes of arson, she might very well describe that as a condition which she could not bo expected to accept. The whole point is %vhether the Irish Transport Workers' Union is or is not engaged in -work so mischievous as to justify a collective attempt on the part of the Dublin employers U\ prevent it doing further mischief.

That, mutatis mutandis, is the whole point here. The Federation, by its policy respecting agreements, has made an agreement impossible. Nothing, then, is left to be done save the restoration of normal trade conditions without further reference to the Federation.. Xo liberty is threatened save the liberty of the Federation to prevent, by crime and violence, the performance by nnaffiliated unionists of the work which it will not itself perform on the only possible conditions.