The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1912. THE COAL STRIKE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1399, 27 March 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1912. THE COAL STRIKE.

The latest cable news respecting the great coal -strike contains hints at a settlement through the breakdown of the strikers' resources, but only hints; and the forces making for a prolongation of the war are still strong and unrepentant on all sides. We were supplied yesterday by cable with a fresh batch of figures—very specific and arresting this time—about the economic effect of the strike, and although the estimate, of losses is appallingly large, it is impossible to suspect it of being an over-estimate. When I lie English mail that arrived on Monday left, London the strike had nut begun, but it had begun to be recognised as inevitable, and in most of tho newspapers (here was evidence of a keen anxiety throughout the country Bnß.i'pening to n. panic. Evr-n jhaia* in tlw middle oi Icbruarjv tho,,

Government was being urged to avert the strike: to avert disaster was its highest duty: and it was being blamed for not having dispelled the clouds of industrial war. This was very unfair. The Government lias behaved extremely well, although we believe that it would have behaved very much better had it simply declined to furnish, for the i'in ! barrassment of future Governments, a signal example of panic legislation. There are not many things worse for the United Kingdom than a general coal strike; but there is one woi-se thing, and that is, the avoidance of a strike by surrendering to force. It is far better nowadays, in almost any country, that a strike should be endured than that it should be avoided. Peace at all costs is a ruinous policy in industry as in everything else. The attitude of the miners and their leaders, and of many of the Labour members of the House of Commons, ought to be a plain warning to the Government that it is far better to withdraw the Coal Mines Bill and allow events to run their course than, by conceding the power of the strike weapon to force immediate legislation, to encourage the wage-earners to believe that henceforth they must treat industry as an endless war. The hostility of the men and their leaders to "compulsory arbitration" is reasonable, but since there is nothing' in ,the Government's Bill at all like compulsory arbitration as we understand it in New Zealand, and nothing to debar the miners from striking as often as they choose, it is impossible not to believe that the strike leaders are not merely multiplying pretexts for a fight to a finish, in the mistaken belief that they can succeed. The language of some of the Labour members of the

House is frankly inflammatory. "A short and sharp period of suffering," said one of them, "would he better than for the masses to be grovelling in poverty and distress while a few people made millions." This is just the attitude which will alienate the sympathy even of those who might be willing, in their sympathy with the demand of workingmen for better wages, to go a good deal further than they think is really wise. The industry cannot stand, unhappily, any large increase in

wages—wretched; to New Zealanders, as ss. a clay must appear—and it is a complete mistake to suppose otherwise, as Sin Arthur Markham, M.P., has made clear. The net profit amounts to only about Gd. a ton. But the issue now is less a mining issue than a social and political one, and according to the Dail'ij Jew.'! powerful groups on both sides of politics recognise this, Anything like a surrender to the strikers will lie a calamitous victory for the syndicalist idea.