SOME ASPECTS OF THE STRIKE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1354, 3 February 1912, Page 4

SOME ASPECTS OF THE STRIKE.

The clearness and magnitude uf the central principle involved in the strike of (lie tramwaymcn has landed to leave insullk'ioiit ly noticed some, very important aspects of (lie affair. We want 1.0 know what steps t.hn Government hiuiDrlo „ to tn.lio against tJbus hundrcdn of men vho

have broken the law, either by striking, or by counselling, aiding and abetting tho strike. Very few people really expect that the. \\ a Hi) Government will do anything. It is finite able and willing to use the last hours of its authority to issue grossly improper edicts involving the expenditure of public money and to make public appointments of importance, which, whether proper or improper, are political rather than administrative acts, and acts, therefore, that could not dccen'tly or constitutionally be performed by a, Government that has lost the confidence of the count]'}' and that knows it will soon be only a thing which men will remember with contempt. The punishment of breaches of the law, however, is a duty that has 110 relation to political circumstances. It is one of the few duties that can properly be discharged by the Ward Government. Yet nothing is more certain than that the Ward Government will not stir a finger to discharge a duty the performance of I'hich can bring no political advantage to tho Executive. Punishment, however, must come, and there must be as little delay as possible about ;et,ting the law in motion. In another a'-tir-ta wo have something to say about the City Council's unhappy failure to break into a strong line, not of policy, but of behaviour. We would not, however, press this point, too strongly : Counllors have probably been too anxiously absorbed in tnc substance of the dispute between the Corporation and its rebellious servants to have much time to think about the manner in which they should conduct v:ir fight. They) granted the mutineers the right to u-e, free, of charge, one of the city's public meeting halls, and the right, moreover, to exclude from the hall every citizen below the status of a law-breaker. It probably did not, occur to the, Council that, apart from its doubtful legality, and its mqrethan doubtful morality, this admission of a number of iaw-breaking ex-employees of the city to a privilege denied to the law-abiding owners of the citv's property was, and will he considered, an affront to the civic sense of the community. The Council has, indeed, shown tl\o scantiest regard for tlio rights of the citizens and the dignity of the city in many important particulars. For the bulk of the information that we have presented to the public during the past few days our reporters have had to depend upon members of tho Striko Committee. The Council has, of course, issued several official statements, but it has not issued anything like a full minute of the proceedings since the strike commenced. The. public has not required a full report of all the discussions that havo taken place round the Council table, but it has a right to know the bare outline of the Council's proceedings—the motions proposed at the various stages of the struggle and tho names of the Councillors who voted "Yes'' or "No" on each proposition. It is impossible for the Council to urge that the publication of such information as this would have hampered it in its handling of the situation. That is a pica that could be advanced only by a Council which followed' a strong, clear,, resourceful policy from the beginning.