The Dominion. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1912. MISGUIDED MINERS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1541, 10 September 1912, Page 6

The Dominion. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1912. MISGUIDED MINERS.

After some four months of idleness the misguided miners at Waihi are in the unhappy position of finding their efforts to intimidate the mine owners recoiling on their own heads. weeks and weeks, spurred on by the men they regard as their leaders, they_ have forced their families to endure discomfort and in some cases extreme hardship: they have injured the townspeople of Waihi; they havo prejudiced temporarily the shareholders in tho mine; and they have in a minor degree acted in a manner harmful to the country, for idle hands mean loss of producing power and waste. And what have- they gained by their foolish subserviency to their leaders' will—what did they stand to gain? Nothing. If ever there was a foolish and unjustified strike it was the Waihi miners' strike novr coming to an end. If anything could discredit the Federation of Labour am! its methods it is the Waihi miners' strike. In tho first place there Ayas not the slightest ground for striking at all. The miners had no quarrel with the mine owners. Their trouble, such as it was, was -with another union; but to serve their ends and in pursuance of their policy of terrorism they refused work because the mine owners dared to employ members of the offending union. That union, the Engine-drivers' Union, declined to come under the sway of 1 the Federation, and so it was to bo i crushed and the closing of the mine, the loss to the work-people, and the shopkeepers, the suffering of women and children—all these counted for nothing against the aggressive truculence of the leaders of the Federation. It is not that the men are all blind fools, willingly yielding their own judgment to the will of the paid agitators who live by stirring up industrial strife. Many, probably the majority, if the truth were known, disagreed with the course proposed by the Miners' Federation in the first instance, but partly through dislike of being thought lacking in spirit and partly through fear of victimisation and the bitter taunts of tho extremists, they allowed themselves to be dragged into an unjust struggle deservedly doomed to failure.

To-day most of the rank and.file of the strikers are poorer, and sadder, and wiser men. They have •learned, as tho whole country has learned, that the leaders of the Federation of Labour are utterly reckless and irresponsible people, ready on the slightest pretext to plunge the workers associated with thenrunto strife and loss regardless of everything save the desire to strike terror _ into the hearts of ' the employing interests and to magnify their own importance as Labour despots. It is doubtful, if at any time during the long period over which the strike has extended, the public has felt the slightest sympathy for the strikers. How could anyone sympathise with men who not only throw down their tools without any just cause, but who, in an endeavour to gain their ends, pursue a policy of boycott and terrorism which is a menace to law and order and revolting to all fair-mind-ed people of every class. It is worth noting that at the British Trades Union Congress just held, the methods of the syndicalists were condemned by an overwhelming majority of the delegates. The Labour Federation in New Zealand is a believer in syndicalism and is said to have been preparing for some timo past to force its demands on the. community by the menace of a general strike. After its experience at Waihi we should imagine that it will find very little backing in future for its schemes of aggression. It has thoroughly discredited itself as well as bringing disaster to the Waihi miners by the encouragement it afforded them to prolong a struggle which was not only entirely'without meiit, but which was hopeless from the outset. The police authorities appear to have acted in the later and critical stages of the strike with wisdom and discretion. It was intolerable that those in Waihi who re fused to come under the domination of the Miners' Federation should have their lives made a burden by the taunts and insults of the strikers and their allies on the spot, and the action of the G6vernment in sending a large force of police to preserve order, and the conduct of the police themselves, will meet with general approval.