The Dominion FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1913. A STRIKE SETTLEMENT AND ITS MORAL.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1692, 7 March 1913, Page 4

The Dominion FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1913. A STRIKE SETTLEMENT AND ITS MORAL.

The public has much reason fx) congratulate itself upon tho speedy settlement of the dispute between the Union Steam Ship Company and its engineers. Had tho strike actually begun, an early settlement would have been difficult, and the public would have suffered very seriously from the inevitable tying up of the company's fleet. The Prime Minister, to whose good offices is duo the rapid solution of tho difficulty, appears "to have applied himself to his duty as arbitrator with the impartiality of the average citizen, but also with tho knowledge of affairs which he has acquired from his long and successful political activities. If he were what the Opposition press, with a pathetically vain persistency, have represented and are representing him to be, he would havo turned a deaf ear to the cardinal contention of tho company's employees. But, of course, the Prijie Minister of fact is a very different man from the Prime Minister of the anti-Reform fabulists. He succceded in bringing the dispute to a t closo very quickly indeed by declaring in favour of the case made out by the men, and the public can feel assured that the agreement arrived at will be honourably respected by both parties to ■the dispute. When, a little timo ago, an attempt was made to paralyse tho coastal service in furtherance of what everybody admitted was a preposterous demand by the firemen of the Maori, there was at no stage any chance that the public would be placed in a position of difficulty. But it was quite another thing when the engineers decided to use the strike weapon to enforce their demands. Without some kind of intervention which both parties could accept without any loss of self-respect, a strike of a serious nature, insoluble excepting by a suirender to force majeure, would almost certainly havo been assured. As matters have turned out, Mr. Massey lias scored a, real triumph in effecting a settlement which gives the men what they demanded without prejudicing their relations with their employers.

One cannot help reflecting upon the fact that the satisfactory issue of their dispute must be attributed by the engineers chiefly to their wisdom, or their good luck (whichever it may be), in having placed their affairs in tho hands of men who

have no selfish interest in encouraging reckless action. This docs not mean that the engineers were not ready and willing for a clean fight: if a settlement had not been arrived at they would, it is obvious, have declared war, and stood to their guns. Most of the strikes—we do nut say all the strikes—during rcoont years in this country would never have taken place if the unions engaged in them had not been under the thumb of those loud-voiced and soft-handed fellows who have discovered that the promotion of industrial unrest is an easy, and, to them,- an agreeable and well-paid profession. In theory, the "leaders" of the "Labour movement" should rejoice over the good terms which the men have secured by submitting themselves to the mediation of the Prime Minister; but in actual fact the mischief-making section of the Labour bosses are more likely to feel extremely disgusted that instead of basing their policy on hate, unreason, and' bitterness* the engineers based it on reason and honesty. It is hardly questionable that many a dispute could be settled by this informal sort of arbitration by a Prime Minister who was, and i 3, as hard a worker, in any sense, as anybody in the country; but that all disputes could thus be settled is impossible, so long as workingmen, believing themselves to be fighting for themselves (which they have a perfect right to do), are led into fighting really for their soft-handed local "boss," and for the system of Labour bossism which is now so well organised that we shall feel no surprise "if some day we see tho formal incorporation of a Labour Bosses' Trust with a very goodly fighting fund behind it. , It is the professional agitator who usually stands in the way of that informal arbitration which has. here so satisfactorily and so promptly averted a very serious strike. We would not, even if we could, proscribe the professional agitator. But one can hope that this latest affair will assist the general body of trade unionists to realise that the loud-mouthed demagogues they have chosen for their executors are not indispensable to the securing, on a friendly basis, of satisfactory wages and conditions : of work.