The Dominion. THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 1910. TRADES UNIONS V. THE MASS OF WORKERS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 886, 4 August 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 1910. TRADES UNIONS V. THE MASS OF WORKERS.

The labour legislation of other countries can always count on receiving a good deal of attention in New Zealand, and there are special reasons why the progress of the Fisher , Government's Arbitration Bill will be followed here with unusual interest.' It contains several provisions which would not have a chance of-success in our own Parliament, so far do they go towards placing the unions in absolute control of the industrial world. Where the Federal Government has not been able to define in specific terms tho scope of the Bill it has resorted to a general phrasing that practically extends uoJiniited freedom of action

to organised labour. For example, "industrial matters" are defined as "all questions of what ia fair and right in relation to any industrial matter having regard to the interests of the persons immediately concerned and of society as a whole." The principal Act is amended to make it apply to persons engaged in domestic service, and agricultural, viticultural, horticultural or dairying pursuits. The principal Act precludes the registration of any union whose rules permit the application of its funds to political purposes, or require its members to do anything of a political character. The new Bill proposes to remove this embargo and to repeal the schedule ot' conditions to be complied with by unions seeking registration. Most important of all the now proposals, however, is that which provides for statutory preference to unionists. As the , law stands, a Court "may" at its discretion grant preference to unionists in any dispute, subject, however, to certain safeguards. The Court must be satisfied that preference is approved by a majority of the workmen affected; its direction for preference may be amended or qualified if the union rules are burdensome, oppressive, or unreasonable; preference must not be granted if the union permits its funds to be used for political purposes. The new Bill proposes to sweep away these just and humane safeguards, by providing that on the mere application of a party to the dispute the Court must grant preference -to unionists without qualification. We do not propose here to resume our own frequent denunciations of the tyranny contemplated by the Labour Government. It is our purpose to deal with the opinions) expressed by the Melbourne Age. Now the Age is regarded as the largest and most influential journal in Australia, and it is one which Labour men and Radicals and "Liberals" in this country quote always with admiration and reverence. These persons will therefore, we are sure, be more inclined to listen to the Age's opinion on the new Bill than to our own. "A very ugly instrument of inhumanity and tyranny," says the Age, which tears to rags the crude sophism, in the contention of the Attorney : General, Mr. W. Hughes, that the organisations or unions should.be given the first chance of benefiting from all the advantages which they might secure for labour by carrying their grievances to Court. The trades unions, it is pointed out, "have no ration d'etre at all if it is not to represent in an official sense all persons employed in the various trades":

"When, therefore, it is sought to endow them with special privileges, tho very claim itself> deprives them of all legitimately representative character. They make the claim, not for the mass of workers they pretend to represent, but for themselves j thut is to say, for officialdom. Thereby they cease to bu trades unions in the proper sense, and stand self-confessed as petty business corporations which are just as intent upon exploiting society as the cruellest 'sweating' employer iu the land." That the unionists are_ a small minority of the workers in Australia there is statistical proof. There are about 153,000 unionists iu the whole Commonwealth, out of a worker population-whose size can be imagined from the fact that there are 257,520 factory employees and 108,457-.working miners, .leaving all the other trades and industries out of account. The position is much the same in New Zealand. ■ This year's Labour Department report shows that in factories alone there were 7.7,806 persons employed' in 1910, and there are many tens of thousands more engaged in_ mining, at wharf labour, on ships, in transport, on the land, etc. Out of the great total thus made up only 54,519 arc unionists. Of the 77,806 in the factories, only 23,474 were members of uniona in December last. Having shown that the unionists in Australia are a fraction of the total number of workers the Age says the unions "have grown weary of representing labour as labour. The old generous ideals no longer appeal to them. They now aspire to power and privilege. They are prepared to continue fighting to improve the worker's lot, but they demand special benefits." If they would be frank about it, nobody would much mind, but this is what they will not do:

"They claim (the "Age" continues) as strongly as ever to be the official representatives of the masses in the very act of endeavouring. to misrepresent, to govern and to over-reach their fellow workers outside the unions. In this there is unmistakably perceptible a flagrant violation of that priino democratic principle, majority rule. An insignificant minority of organised workers, for. the simple reason that it is organised, is boldly reaching out for the right to rule the, vast majority of workers who are not unionists."

The argument used in this country, "We do the work, therefore we ought to get 'first chance' at tho plums," is used in Australia, and it is completely destroyed by our powerful contemporary.. What the unionists really'desire, of course, is to use the preference clause as an instrument to force the masses into the unions. And this is a violation of personal rights clear boyond the need for detailed demonstration. We cannot do better than quote the Age's exact words on this policy of coercion •,

Human nature being what it is (it says), such a preference as is advocated could not fail to lead to grave abuses. It would endow a small number of trades union officials with a power of tyrannising over thousands of helpless people which could hardly be committed with safety to tho hands of a company of duly canonised saints. No nonunionist's employment would thereafter be within his keeping. ' All such men would bo compelled to sue for admission to a. union with no certainty of their requests being favourably entertained. Why should the great masses of our workers be treated in this way? Unionism is not , a special virtue, nor is nonunionism a special vice. The fact that the unions have failed, hopelessly by Seaceful and persuasive methods to iniice more than a small minority of tho workers to enter them is proof positive 'that the masses prefer to remain outside. It is because a majority of mankind always sots liberty of thought and action above other considerations, and abhors even the appearance of coercion. The liberty of the workers is now seriously menaced—and the anomaly of it! —by' a Labour Government which has sought nnd gained the suffrages of tho democracy by its hitherto unswerving advocacy of that golden democratic precept, majority rule.

All these considerations, of course, have been set out many times before now in this country and in Australia. The Age's endorsement of the case against compulsory preference to unionists docs not actually strengthen that case, which needs nobody's fresh assistance. But the fact that the Age, which did more than anyone ■ to place Mb. Fishek in power, and which is the most conspicuous advocate of progressive Radicalism outside Great Britain, has condemned coinpuleory prefer-

ence to unionists aa one that "cannot bo vindicated either by reason or by sophistry," that "is bad to the core," should- forever silencu the slander that that monstrous principle cannot be opposed by any true friend of Liberalism or progress. We specially commend the Aye's powerful article to the attention of Mr. Millar.