THE SYDNEY STRIKE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3186, 10 September 1917, Page 4

THE SYDNEY STRIKE

A brief cablo message from Sydney conveys the _ intimation; that there is a possibility of the striko there being ended to-day. It is stated that a settlement may bo reached, which implies that negotiations are in progress between tho strikers and tho Government. The latest details of the struggle which have reached us will be found in our news columns this morning. They serve to indicate tho position up to four or five days and make it elcar that the striko had grown to very large dimensions and was seriously affecting the whole business life of Sydney and a groat part of New South Wales. Victoria, too, has not escaped. It is not surprising to learn that with so many men affected and with feeling running high there should havo been somo disorder, but the New South Wales Government appears to have shown a resolute front and to havo taken firm measures to suppress lawlessness and mob violence. With railway communication seriously crippled, shipping at a standstill, and something like 100,000 idle, the strike whioh was founded on such trifling and unreasonable grounds will havo proved a tremendously costly thing for all concerned. The whole State will bo a heavy loser, but those who will suffer most will be the thousands of people, men, women, and children, whose means of living have been cut off by the wanton action of tho strikers. Thousands of working-class families who have no connection with the strikers have been forced to suffer loss and hardship and to use up such savings as they may havo possessed owing to tho enforced closing down of all sorts of businesses and industrial undertakings dependent for their sources of supply and power on the sorvices affected by the strike. Tho strike is a clumsy and brutal weapon at any time, inflicting injury indiscriminately and. always hitting hardest those least able to bear the blows. The bigger tho strike- and the wider its effects, the larger the proportion of innocent and unoffending of all classes who aro made to suffer. The loss and suffering occasioned by tho great striko in New South Wales may perhaps havo a sobering effect on those who follow so blindly the guidance of the wild extremists who have exercised so powerful an influence in Labour circles in that State. It will have been, however, a costly lesson.

In tho eoureo of tho hearing of a caso In Masterton on Friday, in which a man was charged witli failing to maintain his wife, it was staled Hint tho defendant had lived in tho house for seven months with tho complainant without speaking to her. Tho excuse given was that whenever ho spoko there was a row.