"REMEMBER WAIHI"

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1619, 10 December 1912, Page 5

"REMEMBER WAIHI"

. —a—— . COMMENT IN AUSTRALIA. .' Several of the Australian newspapers commented last week on the end of the Waihi strike. . "The struggle has no doubt cost Waihi and the owners of the mines n heavy price, but Now Zealand and Australia are infinitely richer for the experience," 6aid the "Melbourne Argus." A lesson that badly needed teaching has been rubbed in-In a manner which will' not soon be forgotten. The revolutionary Socialists have been taught that when the Government, while remaining strictly impartial as between the antagonists, yet firmly en- ' forces the law, they cannot possibly win. Working men are extraordinarily docile as. long as they believe that the object' of their leaders is to benefit them. This object;' excuses, to their minds, many. vagaries of conduct'and an infinity of foolish talk, but, at Waihi, none but fanatics could doubt the sheer wickedness .and'depravity of the federation's tactics." The "Evening' News" said:—"Behind the movement that triumphed at Waihi is a feeling that' can never be crushed out of the hearts of free men—namely, that, in. a free country, all men are equal in the eyes of ths law, and are entitled to the State's protection in the ment of their full rights of citizenship. There is no place in.an enlightened democracy, for, a privileged class, , and one lesson, of, the Waihi strike is that, in a state of society where all are presumably /equal, the,tyranny of one class over an- , other may prevail for a time, but, ,soon or late, is doomed to a certain and, possibly, a tragic ending. -' The watchwords in fuinire conflicts between organised and unorganised laboiir may accordingly be: "Remember Waihi." FEDERA.TIONISTS JOIN UNION. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) Auckland, December 9.' ' Hnntly federationists at a meeting on Sunday resolved that its. members should join . the Arbitration .Union. Two delegates were appointed to proceed to Auckland to interview the Taupiri Company directors .and ask for the reinstatement of., the executive, dismissed after a twenty-four hours' strike held as a protest against the imprisonment of the Waihi federationists.. .