THE THREATENED STRIKE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1652, 20 January 1913, Page 6

THE THREATENED STRIKE.

We wore glad to be ; able< to print on Saturday, side by side with the ■statement of Sir George Clifford, tho case for tho slaughtermen in the current dispute as set forth by tho secretary of the Canterbury Slaughtermen's Union. Ono of tho Christchurch papers suggests that the public's sympathy is with the men, but this is obviously incorrect, unless, indeed, the Canterbury public likes-to take Bides and give judgment before hearing the .argument. Tho statement by tho secretary of the Canterbury Union leaves matters Very much, where they wbre. His argument' amounts, really, to nothing more than this: that a.slaughterman's trade is not a pleasaht ono, and should bo rowarded accordingly. It is true, also, that the men run the risk of hcoident, as in other trades; but all these things are recognised by the payment of wages far greater than is paid in almost any other trqde... The arguments employed by the mon's spokesman, if they havo any real validity at all, aro just as valid against the rate of 30s. per lOp. To tho contention that the trado is .dangerous and unpleasant tho companies can roply, that that is why the wages aro nigh; and tho unions i are still left with tho burden of showing that 30s. and not 275. 6d. is a fair price to pay, In tho statement from Canterbury no reference is made to the, other demands of the Union, and tho public is really far more concerned with them than witli tho question of wages. In a free industry the-rate of pay is after all a matter betweon the employer and the employed;, but. the public in-' terest is involved in any proposal to make a closo corporation of any trade. '

While the dispute is proceeding, in tho meantime, it is worth while paying a little attention to the very great frequency of Btrikes and labour disputes in this country. In the presence of the great and glaring failure of tho Arbitration t Act to Bocuro oithor peaco or justico in industry, it is almost with difficulty

that one remembers how long and successfully the defenders of tho Act maintained their position. Some time must yet elapse, and more strikes must take place, however, !)efore the public realises that the Act is chargeable with something worse tiian failure. Alroady a large section of trade unionists have dceidod to do without its aid, and set themselves free from the shadowy restrictions which it professes to lay upon those unions which use it; and the other unions support it only because its advantages to them as unions are thought to be far greater than its disadvantages. But we do not now intend to go into the genoral question onoe more. We > would merely ask those who used to deride the critics of the Act, and who thought it sufficient to point to "the absence of strikes"—New Zealand was once "the land without strikes" ! —as a sufficient reply to all criticism, what they think of the long chain of industrial troubles in the past few years.