PRESS OPINION

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3162, 14 August 1917, Page 6

PRESS OPINION

"THE FIGHT MUST GO ON" \ "There seems to bo no possibility of j compromise," says the Jlelbouriio "Argus." "The Government simply can. ( not giv6 way. Tho fight must go on. 1 After the experience of Victoria in 11)03 t tho defeat of the strikers ie inevitable, f Tim struggle in this State was ehap * nnd bitter, but short; and the public won. s The strike was doomed, because it was a, strike against the whole community, and the suffering peoplo were uncom- ' proimsingly hostile to he strikers. Such a strike cannot last, for founds cannot be raised from unetaiioyod unionists

wherefrom to distribute strike pay. So I that the Kow iSoutli Wales railway I workers have undertaken 2 hopeless task —that is, if the Ministry stands firm and fights to 11 finish. The statement is made that the Ministry "will not budge an inch" in the direction of granting tho demand, and Mr. Fuller lias the rf.putn.tion of being a man of courage' and determination. The circumstances stand as a warning against tho increase of Government activities. Tho difficuHy of handling great bodies of organised men, perpetunlly demanding concessions, is extreme. They all have votes and political influence. Their disposition is to dictate to Administrations, and tho tendency of politicians is to lend a ready ear to their murmuring*, bur there inevitably comes a timo when further yielding is impossible. That time has'been reached in 'New South Wales, and authority mus--be vindicated." "It all Seems Like Madness." "it ait senilis Into madness,' i-ays tho Sydney "JJany TL-i^iupn.' -j' lml tllc men responsive lor a can reuiiw: tuo nature 01 tlieir action is quite nupi>sji>'k! lu uoiicvc. thu hit 01 me tt-lioio tumniouwealtn community, witn its stadiums and its race meetings, and its btrikus, ami its extravagances of every kind, pui>lit; and private, ut the present of the war negatives any suqli supposition, 'ine glamour ol the tietitipus uruspenty caused by the forced distribution u *» inucii national oupital amongst, the people prevents the position of the counti-y lroni being seen in il.s true light. Ao other explanation will fit the extraordinary set of circumstances under which \va are entering to-day upon tho fourth year of a war in wlncii men arc perishing in ever-increasing millions, wuile a more or less unheeded cail is made to α-plnce our own losses, which are still crowing with the rest. The strike leaders m.w declare that tho men are i'ea<ly to go back, to work, but only if tho card system, over which they have picked ll.is quarrel, is discontinued, and a commission may then inquire into its merits or demerits. They do not- even pledge themselves to accept the verdict of the commission. Apparently they reserve the right to go oiiit on strike again if they do not like its finding. That, on the face of it, is hardly good enough. Before the strike the Government offered, if the men would withdraw their ultimatum, to suspend the card sytem for 11 week so that the whole case for and against it could bo examined by an im-, partial tribunal. Possibly the Government would still be willing to agree to some such concession; but it seems an indispensable condition that the men should return to work. If they refuse all that remains for the Government is to do the best it can to carry on without them, and to seo that as much »f the consequences of their action as possible falls upon the strikers themselves and as little as possible on the people who have no responsibility for it."

No Principle of Unionism Assailed. "To say, as the strike leaders do, that unionism is in danger because J_he Government has stood to its guna wiien challenged is again to confess weakness," says the "Sydney Morning Herald." "In one way, of course, it is good tactics. It is appealing to unionists on the side upon which they feel most deeply. Outsido of his union the worker, who has l>een sheltered for years in increasing comfort, cannot imagine himself existing. Tell him that unionism is in danger and he instinctively throws to--the winds everything that before appealed to him. large numbers of the railway and tramway men are thoroughly disgusted with tho strike; and could they lave been m.re that unionism would be safe if they stood loynlly by the State as their employer, they would have defied tho strike committee when it called them out. Many havo defied it, and-more will" follow. But the point is that unionism is in 'dancer from the strike leaders action. Defeat of this attack upon the public can alona secure the foundations of unionism, because the success of tha strike must mean eventual slavery for the individual unioukt. He will be ground under tho heel of extremists in touch with the T.W.W.. if not oponly confessing its doctrines':.for his salvation and eventual comfortable existence must depend upon the supremacy of the State. TTnionism is certainly in no peril from a Government which is merely defending the right of the Railway Commissioners to demand a fair diy's work for a fair day's nay. It i? as certainly m deadly peril from tho extreme action of men who have conspired to, humiliate and liTeak up ft Government recently returned to power bv a substantial majority of the lectors. This is being realised everywhere, as much by the hearty wellwishers of unionism who are outside as by the more thoughtful and reasonable of the men inside. Upon this the Government has relied in making its reply to the challenge of the strike.

Plain Social Sabotage. The Sydney "Bulletin." which in the past has shown a strong leaning to Labour unionism, writing of the strike in its current issue, says:—"This strike is just plain social sabotage. The men who went on strike had not even the excuse of possessing a tangible grievance, They were not seeking the redress of any wrong. Stating the case for themselves, the only justification they could produce was an assertion that'the time-cards would lead to grievances in the future. Asked to prove this, they declined the invitation. Asked to give! , the system a trial and produce the grievances for inspection when they arrived, they declined some more They simply insisted on denying the right of their own Department to institute a change of internal management, and on asserting their own. right to either have their way or to deal out stoush to the community. On tho basis of the strikers' case not being bogus, all this meant that a. crowd of rebels was trying to browbeat the State into submission through fear. On the basis of the strike being merely a machine-made disturbance, it meant that several thousand men had been prepared to blindly follow like rambucks wherever a coterie of disgruntled wirepullers chose to lead them. In either case it meant that the .public peace and convenience were made the sport of a truculent, intolerant push. It public ownership of utilities common to the general citizenship cannot save tho ipeoplo from assaults like this, where in the name of commonsense are the advantages ot the experiment to be looked for ? lhis paneldoes not know, and has a suspicion that no one else knows. What it does knowis that this strike makes a mockery of oven-thing the Labour movement and industrial unionism has stood for m the ■past, and turns into jest the whole superstructure of Labour legislation and administration. There are perilous times ahead of Australia. Economic problems of a character the population has never even dreamed about are in the making. Is there anyone who imagines that these will be met and dealt with by the maintenance of such industrial conditions as are prevalent to-day f It is very doubtful for theso conditions are a sham from top to bottom, and tho Labour movement is rapidly becoming a sham, too. As it is to-dav it stands for one thing onlyhashing "a public which earns hostility by leavin- itself open to attack No State ever stood tlmt sort of thing indefinitely, and Ausraliii will not, because Australia has to live."