The Dominion. TUESDAY, MAY 21, 1912. THE WAIHI STRIKE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1445, 21 May 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, MAY 21, 1912. THE WAIHI STRIKE.

The public is enabled to sec to-day the reasons that actuated the "Waihi engine-drivers and winders in theii decision to form a union apart from the unregistered Waihi Miners' Union. It would have been quit< sufficient for the new union to urge that it objected to the Federation's methods and that it had a perfect right to exist in its own way. Nothing more would have been required to' turn public sympathy towards the new union. The Winders' Union has set out, however, a scries of facts which show that Urn Federation, in its dealing with the drivers and winders, has pursued a policy of unfairness and chicane. But the best defence of the new union is the behaviour of the big union since the strike began. The strike commenced as an act of tyranny; the original union made up its mind to coerce the engine-drivers and winders—at any cost whatever to them, to the mines, and to the community of Waihi— into remaining outside the Arbitration Act. The strikers have been exerting all their efforts ever since towards making the situation as unpleasant as possible for everybody. They have resorted to boycotting in every form available to them; they have sought to intimidate the. nonstrikers; they have shown little concern even for the necessities of the hospital, in which are involved the interests of the sick people there; they have used their connexion with the Federation of Labour to threaten a strike of the Waikato Coal Miners' Union. They have endeavoured, that is to say, to "hold up" the town, quite regardless of what or who may suffer in the process. The public fs not VKry much concerned with the mere dispute between the Federation of Labour and the engine-drivers, but it is deeply concerned; with the fact, that, such a serious slate of things can be brought about by organised Labour in a country which lias for years tolerated the Arbitration Act for its supposed efiicacy as a preventive of strikes. The Minister for Labour apparently sees no more in the whole deplorable situation than "an internal dispute pure, and single" between

■t of workmen and another, •uite true that, so far as can i- at present, the Waihi Miners' ■w has not committed a breach ;!;•■ iw. But everybody knows

: : if lliat body found it necessary at my linii! to break the law in furf Jii-iuntv of tlii! strike, tlie law would lie cheerfully broken. We have tie.; authority of one of the strike oralors mi tin's point. This is a Mn. Savauk, who, in the course of a speech to a gathering of the strikers, Raid that "flu; action of the enginedrivers in funning a union was lawill), bill the law was made for man, and if man was dissatisfied with the law he was right in kicking it aside." Nobody outside a lunatic asylum or the Federation of Labour would dream of arguing with people who can talk such staggering nonsense; if is enough to "suggest that the Federation must not mistake its "dissatisfaction - ' with the law for the community's dissatisfaction with the law. ]f there is to be anv "kicking aside," it will assuredly be the community that will do the kicking and the Federation that will receive it. We have not been told what the new "United Labour partv" thinks of the trouble. Perhaps the paralysI ing of a town, the endangering of ' the health of ,1 coiiiniiinitv, and wc infringement of the liberty of nonstnkcrs, may be a trifling'"internal ■ dispute," of no particular moment to a momentary Minister; but 'f there is any substance whatever in the unctuous professions bv the 'Unity" leaders of a hatred for the methods of tyranny and lawlessness, the United Labour party is missing, or neglecting, an excellent opportunity to prove it. Hero is a registered union fighting against the Federation of Labour, and fighting, obviously, for its right to that registered existence which would bring it within the mission area, if not into the reclaimed land, of the "Unity" movement. In the meantime, there can only bo one end of the strike—defeat for the strikers—if the mine-owners stand firm and that support is given to the new union which is its right. The Federation can hardly hope to survive much longer the fresh discredit into which its latest adventure must bring it.