The Dominion. SATURDAY, JANUARY 29, 1910. INDUSTRIAL COERCION.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 728, 29 January 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, JANUARY 29, 1910. INDUSTRIAL COERCION.

-« AiiTHOuQH to many people the Premier of New South Wales will seem to havo adopted rather a harsh tone' in his. discussion. of the situar tion caused by the imprisonment of Mr. Peter Bowding, there will be no disagreement as to the extraordinary interest of his speech of yesterday. It is not generally ploasant to criticise adversely the substance of the utterances of a distinguished visitor to our country, but we are sure that Mr. Wade would much .prefer that his opinions should be freely criticised, ewjn sharply criticised, than tliat he should be treated with an 'Unhelpful tenderness. It is therefore with complete confidence that he will not take candour amiss that, we venture to pay the same attention to his speech as we would pay to any important statement on industrial affairs by a resident of New Zealand. He holds pretty much the same opinions on industrial arbitration as are hold by the official defenders of our own Arbitration Act, He reproduces their fallacies , with perfect oxactitude. ; Ho uses the same -language as they-use. He seems as unable as they are to perceive the full consequences entailed by industrial coercion, the wild doctrines that' arc involved in the logical development of the idea that industrial free-trade must be extinguished. We have throughout the strike commended his defence of the law, and we do not retract one word we have written on that point. Tho antistrike law existed, and he deserves the applause and the gratitude of all right-thinking men for doing his 1 Hat to havo that law rigidly en-

forced. With bis observations upon the wickedness of the agitator who wantonly stirs up strife and plunges his victims in distress or ruin, there can bo no possible disagreement. But from his general theory of industrial legislation, which is the theory that, is in vogue in New Zealand, iwo differ most profoundly. Tho prosent law in New' South Wales, he saidj arose out of the conviction that "efforts should bo mado to secure some fresh machinery, binding on both parties, for preventing tho dislocation of trade by strikes or lockouts." No aim could be more worthy tho care of tho statesman than that,- but is it not plain that there must bo some strong reason why the' wisest men of all parties in the Old World have steadily ■ refrained from resorting to tho machinery so light-heartedly adopted in Australasia ? • It will not pass the wit of man' to devise machinery that will fully meet the purpose defined by Mr. Wade without involving the strange doctrine that any individual can so far be the slave of society as to be unable, without being treated as a criminal, to practise industrial free-trade. This is the point which tho imprisonment of Bowling, which will certainly mark a new, epoch in tho public's conception of industrial coercion, brings ' to tho front, and which alone we ' can discuss just now. It would have ' been an evil thing if Bowling had not been imprisoned; to have ignored his breach of the law would have been to bring two great disasters upon the State—a public contempt for the law, and the submission of the State to trades-union rule. But his imprisonment supplies just the light that was wanted to bring out in sharp relief the badness of a law that applies to industrial contracts' the, canons on,which are based the 1 criminal laws constructed for the protection of person and property!' Nobody will accuse us of affection for strikes or strikers. We did our best to oncourage the Government to take the samo action against the Blackball and- other strikers as Mr. Wade's Government has taken against the strikors in New' South Wales. But we always have held the opinion thati to make "industrial warfare" a criminal, thing per se is abhorrent to the conscience of'a civilised community, and even more dangerous for what.it must lead to than for what it immediately entails. , The imprisonment of Bowling will enable tho public to realise what a grave innovation it is to make criminals of men who uso the natural methods of making industrial bargains. [We do not speak here either of mere agitators, or of strikers who actually commit breaches of the peace or offences against persons or property.] Nothing could be more reprehensible than Sir Joseph Ward' 3 declaration at Kaitangata in April, 1908, that he would closo tho .gaols against strikers, for he was there actually defying an existing law; but it was a right instinctthat mado him denounce imprisonment as a factor-in -the -regulation of industry. His words aro worth recalling: Personally, he was ontirely against imprisonment for any such thing [striking], and if tho ivholo of tho men implicated 'camo and asked, that the gates should bo thrown open in order that of thbir own freo will in tho matter, they might' walk in, ho, as Leader of the GoTomment, would givo instructions that tho gaols should bo securely locked and the men kept out. liirMsoNmirr as a hbmedy WAS ABSOLUTELY USELESS ASJD REPUGNANT TO ■ ONE'S ' BETTEB. JUDGMENT. " Of the same tenor was-Dn. Findlay's speech in Wanganui on May 22 of the same year: Ho was personally opposed to it iimpriBonmont of strikers], for ho was convinced that unless imprisonment carried with it the stigma of disgrace, it was no doterrent. If they took a body of men who struck (perhaps not for themselves, but because they believed their fellow workmen had been unjustly dealt .with, or because they considered that the rights of tho workers had been violated), and put them in prison, they would not 'bo disgraced. / Such treatment, instead of punishing thorn, would win them sympathy. , Public opinion was not yet ripo m New Zealand for tho treatment of "striking" as a crime. Moreover, experience had shown that imprisonment had failed to stop strikes; it had failed in pvory Stato -. of Australia! Tho view we took then, and still hold, is that whilo we "are opposed to imprisonment as a punishment for obdurate strikers, yet so long as the law provides for imprisonment .it must bo upheld." As Mr. Wade says, "the first law of civilisation is the maintenance of order," but a peaceful strike, unaccompanied by violence, is not an attack upon public order. That Mr. Wade should so confuse industrial smoothness and continuity with public order, or, rather, industrial deadlocks with public disorder, is significant of the distance to which the politicians of Australasia have drifted from the safe moorings of sound principles. Compulsory arbitration of the Australasian sort is impossible without provision for the imprisonment of those concerned in Btrikes or lock-outs. What we therefore hold is that a law that thus depends upon tho maintenance of a bad principle cannot be a sound law, and - ought to be discarded. Wo believe that *the imprisonment of the Australian strike- leaders, which a bad law made necessary, will go far towards destroying that strango Antipodean delusion that economic and industrial ;■ happiness can be achieved by introducing coercion into a domain that the' wisest statesmen consider to be above 'all others the sanctuary of freedom.. ,' ,