The Dominion. TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1910. THE END OF A STRIKE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 766, 15 March 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1910. THE END OF A STRIKE.

The bulk of the public long ago ceased to pay much attention to the progress of the Newcastle strike; no doubt the announcement that the strike has been settled came as a rather surprising, reminder to many people that it had still been going on. From time to time during the past few weeks there have appeared, sandwiched between the messages .recording the almost interminable alternations of "hitches," "deadlocks," and "hopeful prospects of settlement," various hints' of the great harm that the strike was doing to New. South Wales. It is in <4 message that we print to-day, however, that the real effect of the strike becomes apparent. The total loss to the workers,' in the shape of unpaid wages, amounts to a million , ster-' ling; but this is only' the least part of the price which the State will have paid for" the miners' fruitless attempt to capture the control of" the country's chief industry. For there has been the irretrievable loss, to the community of the wealth and the profits that would have been produced had the mines been working. There is the further loss, involved in the hampering of the industries dependent upon the coal supplies, and, finally, has lasted long enough to lose to New South Wales some of her most profitable markots. ' As a direct result of the ambitions of the miners' trade societies coalfields have been opened in ( Victoria, and these will supply the 300,000 tons of coal formerly .obtained from the New South Wales collieries by the Victorian State Government. The trade with tho Philippines has also reoeived a set-back, and Japan has obtained a footing in trading territory where' New South' Wales once did a very largo business. As we in ,Now Zealand are never safe from strikes now, tho lessons'of the long struggle across tho Tasman Sea are of interest and importarico, to this country. The first lesson, of course, is tho impossibility of success for even-a strike on a large scale in a vitally important industry provided that the employers, the general public arid the Government face the situation in the right spirit. ' Although in the early stages of the strike . the! Government displayed a slowness to move remarkably at variance with its promises of energetic action, it has to its credit the fact that it never for a moment contemplated yielding a.;' single inch to the pressure of militant labour. On the contrary, when it did act, it carried a new war into the camp of the enemy. Had the Government shown any sign of weakening,-much less any anxiety: to surrender as the New Zealand Government surrendered during the Blackball strike, a crushing blow would have been dealt at the stability of law and order. Wanting the support of a . Government determined to carry out the law, the mine-owners would have been at- the mercy, of the strikers, and the struggle would have terminated in a way that would have monaced the industrial life of the whole country. The Government, fortunately . for the State, stood firm, and .it can congratulate itself upon having thus secured the defeat of the most menacing attempt at class domination which Australia has ever witnessed. It would perhaps be not quite fair to ask New Zealand employers to compare their timidity and weakness with the firmness of the. mine-owners, for New South Wales possesses what New Zealand does not possess, a- Government that employers can rely upon not to rusii forward in shuddering propitiation with large gifts and concessions when any large section of • Labour shows its teeth. At the same 'time New Zealand employers may reflect with profit upon the possibility of offering resistance even though the Government,. in despite of its duty of impartially defending the law and the public interest, may hasten to join the side of the trades unions in any conflict, that may take place.. The miners of New South Wales must bo realising to the full the folly and misery of the strike method; they will not hastily embark a second time on a war for supremacy , over the rest of the State. We wish wo could think that trades unioriists everywhere would realise that nobody suffers' from strikes, more greatly than 'the workers .themselves. The gains of a strike are.never permanently substantial; .'the losses, in the shape of . unused labour and tho resultant non-production of 'national wealth, can obviously be enormous.