A FUTILE CONFERENCE.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1898, 5 November 1913, Page 4

A FUTILE CONFERENCE.

The efforts to promote, a peaceful settlement of the strike, which is blocking the shipping of tho Dominion and causing such widespread troublo and distress, have again failed. So far as can be learned the employers appear to have taken up the attitude that it is hopeless to expect agreements to be kept unless they' are registered under the Arbitration Act. Perhaps that is slightly overstating their position, and it might be more accurate to say they feel that they 'havo no security under agreements with unions affiliated with the Federation of Labour, which, as is well_ known, will have nothing to do with Conciliation Boards or the Arbitration Court. At any rate, the result of the conference was that the representatives of the strikers refused point-blank to agree to register an agreement under the Arbitration Act, even though the employers were ready to grant them exactly the samo rates of pay and conditions of work as they enjoyed under the old agreement, and with which they were quite satisfied. Thus there appears to have been nothing in dispute at the conference on the question of wajps or conditions of work. Tho only issue in conflict was the question of registering the agreement under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, and this the representatives of the Federation of Labour declined to agree to. It is much to be regretted that satisfactory terms of, settlement could not be arrived at, but it must bo apparent to everyone that it is quite useless entering into agreements which aro liable to be brokea at a moment's notice, and for most trivial reasons or no reasons at all. It has been said, and quite truly, that registration under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act does not afford any absolute guarantee that an agreement will not bo broken. But such an agreement cannot be broken without knowingly and deliberately breaking tho law. There is every probability that a union will consider more seriously the question of breaking an agreement whichbrings it into immediate conflict with the law than it will weigh the consequences of a breach which merely involves its good faith. But, bo that as it may, the fact remains that the strike continues unsettled. The next question to bo considered is whether the whole of the business of the port is .to bo hung up indefinitely or whether cargo shall bo worked by free workers or arbitrationists. It must be obvious that the port cannot be allowed to continue idle simply because tho members of the Waterside Workers' IFnion refuso to work themselves and object to anyone else doing so. There are hundreds of workers Desides the watersiders out of employment as tho result of tho strike, and it' is in their interests as well as in tho interests of the farmers, business people, and the community generally that watorsido work should be resumed as soon as possible. It has been threatened that if free "workers or arbitrationists are employed there will be sympathy strikes, and we are quite prepared to believe that something of this kind may happen. But how the waterside workers expect to be helped by such action it is difficult to see. ' It simply means' more men out of employment; more inconvenience; rooro loss; and more hardship to the men themselves and their families, as well as to the rest of the community. Tho general strike can paralyse* tho business of the community fairly thoroughly for a brief time, but it cannot bo sustained, for the people who Buffer most inevitably must' be tho men out of work—the strikers—and the more unions there are involved tho less assistance they can render one another financially. The very best thinkers and most ardent enthusiasts on the side of Labour, the men in the front rank of the Labour movement in the Old World, have abandoned tho general strike idea, end it is left for. tho thoughtless but noisy and often influential agitator to fall back on this weapon which invariably inflicts more injury on those who use it than on those at whom it is directed. Work, we believe, will be resumed on the wharves this week.