The Coal Strike.
Already tho Australian coal strike is having serious consequences in the shape of interrupted transport and industrial paralysis, and if the strike continues for any length <ji time, tho result will be disastrous for the Commonwealth. We are not amongst those who hold that no strike is ever justified. If it i< not a breach of any contract, and is the last resort of men who have exhausted all other means of securing the redress of real grievances, it is legitimate enough- But it is long since any body of organised labour in Australia or New Zealand was ln such a position. Strikes nowadays arc always of one of two kinds:. Either thev are mere acts of wanton defiance, like the big strike of 1913 in this country, or they are mere attempts to force unjustifiable concessions. In the present case, the element of hardship is wanting in the miners' case. They are deliberately taking advantage ofthe fact that the country is at war, and cannot endure a stoppage of the coal supply, in order to enforce, demands tho unreasonableness of which requires no further proof than the fact that the conditions when the strike was declared "were conditions quite freshly agreed to between the mine-owners and the employees. At any ordinary timo this strike would be indefensible; coming at this timo it can without exaggeration be called a crime against Australia. The men are clearly the aggressors in the present instance. They were working under an agreement which had not long been arranged, and which it was sought to establish as a Federal award. The Arbitration Court had fixed the date of hearing, but the miners went on strike. If thero were
any merits in the miners' case, these would be cancelled by the obvious intention of the strikers to' make use the opportunities which the state of war and the necessities of the nation present to lawlessness and treason. Instead of striving by all means to keep the machinery of the State running, they have taken the exactly opposite course. As the Melbourne '"Argus ' bluntly puts it: "Under some malign "influence they were bent upon strik- " ing. Their plaint was a sham, and " they wanted neither conciliation nor ' li arbitration." The strike is not really industrial in its character —few strikes are, nowadays, in Australia. It is only the latest and the most formidable development of the anti-social and anarchical spirit which has been developing in Australia as a result of tho continued dominance of Australian politics by the Labour organisations which havo lately shown themselves to be both criminal and disloyal. The leaders of organised Labour in Austra- ' lia have seen the various Governments, State and Foderal, unwilling or afraid to uphold the law. They have been led into believing that they can control the destiny of the whole continent, and in no small moasuro their belief is an excusable one. That it is essential to Australia and the Empire that industry shall go on undisturbed, and that tho means of transport within the Commonwealth and oversea shall bo continued, in order that Australia may bo a help and not a hindrance to tho Empiro, matters nothing to them. They arc not in tho least influenced by tho consideration that a first result °f tho strike has been the throwing out of work of many thousands of innocent people who havo no relation to the ooal industry, and tho raising of prices, and the creation of widespread distress. The guilt of the men themselves is serious, but it is secondary. The real criminals are the leaders who have led tho men into crime, and it is upon them that the arm of tho State should fall. Unhappily these men have been made bold and arrogant by long impunity. Wo might havo had tho sam© conditions hero had not our Government in 1913 taken a firm stand, mobilised, t-ho resources of civil order, and struck at tho leaders of the strike. Here tho mischievous strike-engineer has no halo of invulnerability about his head; ho lia« no mana; his influenco for evil was checked by stern action on tho part of tho nation's executive. It
is only by strong act-ion that Australia can be saved from grave trouble now and graver troubles in the fnture.
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Press, Volume LII, Issue 15750, 17 November 1916, Page 6
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719The Coal Strike. Press, Volume LII, Issue 15750, 17 November 1916, Page 6
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