VIEWED PROM SYDNEY.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1899, 6 November 1913, Page 9

VIEWED PROM SYDNEY.

PRESS COMMENT ON THE POSITION, "OMINOUSLY INSTRUCTIVE." By Teiecrach—Fxcsa Association—Cobjrlsht 5 , Sydney, November 5. lhe "Daily Telegraph," commenting on tho strike, says:—"That things should conic to such a-pass in New Zealand, of all countries, is ominously instructive. There, advanced legislation ■has gone further than anywhere in Australasia, if not tho world, and tho most that has been possible has been dono for tho mass of tho people. . After all these years of experimental and uplifting legislation, one of tho most formidable, angry strikes ever known in Australasia is being persisted in, becauso the men refuse to come imdor tho trumpeted Arbitration Act, and give a guarantee for industrial continuity This is really a strike against tho Arbitration Act."

Sydney, November G. na "®J'd. nc y Morning Herald" says: ' Australia is watching tho progress of the Now Zealand strike with moro than ordinary interest, because the issuo at stake is one which sooner or later will have to bo faced by tho Commonwealth." It asks: "Is the principle -of a peaceful settlement of industrial disputes by arbitration or mutual agreement to endure, or are tho workers to revert with impunity to the clumsy, anti-social weapon of tho strike? We are glad to think that suggestions of sabotage by syndicalist agitators nre by no means approved by tho main body of workers; but-, unfortunately, tho extremist is loud-voiced and übiquitous, and the agitator is often ablo to dominate bis more moderate and less artieulato colleagues.". The "Herald" regrets tho failure of the Wellington conference.

PUBLIC MUST BACK UP THE LAW,

Australian files by the last mail show that tho strike crisis in New Zealand is being very fully cabled, and Hint the attempt of a lawless section to hol<] up the community and paralyse its activities, and to thU hope is added an appeal to the Xew Zealand public to back up tho forces of jaw and order. Profound interest is being taken in the issue. Tlio principal note in tlio "Sydney press comment is a fervent hope that the authorities will not recede from the position they have taken up.. "In Mich an emergency." observes the Sydney "Daily Tejegraph," "employer-; are only more directly concerned (lian the people as u whole, wiui have onich more to lose lima have any group of individuals in the light. If the strikers can successfully pursue their present tar tics the people can only get the of life by bringing pressure to bear jo favour of granting terms whose cost, they will have to heart and let thai be conceded once £jul thereafter tho comnviuutT will ba at

tiifl mercy of a few avid union under recklessly belligerent loaders. The readiness with which oilers of labour are being made by country peopio indicates Hint public opinion is expressing itself in Iho right way in this regard. In Australia Iho 'upshot will be observed with the sharper interest, because what is happening in New /,enl:uiil is universally symptomatic and may be our trouble «t any time. Civilisation must recognise I hat it is in the presence of a new danger from within and prepare to protect itself against a. new fo.rm of tyranny." Proposteroys and Insolent Throat. .Again, in another article, the "Telegraph" remarks that "what the situation discloses is the strike ill tho worst form its malignant, development Ims assumed so far, and that both in method and tactics. Strikes and attempts to prevent tho operation of free labour are no now tiling, but tho extensive sympathy strike and widespread organisation behind nro tho more modern forms of industrial war, and lvo seo t'liem boldly displayed hero, first in organised cessation of work, next in tho threat of tlio president of tho Federation of Labour that if the police aro employed ho will provide ten or fifteen thousand Aimed men 'to defend themselves.' The threat is as preposterous as it is insolent, for armed strikers would not fight to defend themselves but to prevent work being do no by others which they refuse to do, and tlrus withhold indispensable supplies and services from tho public. If they could do that, constitutional government in New Zealand would havo collapsed."

Country Producer Roused. Tlio .Sydney "Morning Herald" notes that the Wellington strifes "is very quickly developing, as aid tlio Brisbane strike, into what is littlo elso than, a sort ot modified civil war between tiio town and the country. In Now Zeuland, as in Australia," says the "Herald," "tho town workers aro to some extent pampered at tho expense of tho country producer. Tlio division between these two interests has for sosno time been acuto in Canada; but in Australasia, although it has long been obvious that tho breach must come, it has only been, in Iho last year or two that tho country producer has shown signs of realising this. At present, as long as tho favoured city worker makes no wholesale interference with country interests, tho country bestirs itsei'f very little. But when tho city worker, having already possessed himself of conditions incomparably more comfortable than tlioso of country workers, proceeds to .hold up tho produce of tlio country in an endeavour to make his easy mode of lifo still easier there comes a time when tho country producer has had enough of it. Ho rides into town and settles the matter for himself. It is a step which ho will probably take more frequently in the future than he has done in the past, and it will always 'have the same result. The city worker may bs well organised, and ho is often fairly reckless. But when it comas to a real lusslo the eity man is not, and never will be, a match, for the country man. That is the pass to which our advanced industrial development has brought u.s in Australasia, Tlio real limit to which 0110 organised body of workers can go is tho point at which it finds itself face to faco with another equally determined body of workers, on whose rights it begins t» trespass."