The Dominion. FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1919. A BRUTAL WEAPON

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 246, 11 July 1919, Page 6

The Dominion. FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1919. A BRUTAL WEAPON

It is shown in the latest cablegrams from Australia that so far as negotiations between the parties are concerned a settlement o't the maritime strike is as far as ever from being approached. At tip same time some indication is given of the intolerable created in the Commonwealth by a thousand seamen who have set its Government and people at defiance. It is mentioned in one of to-day's messages that the number of people throughout the .Commonwealth unemployed, as a result of the strike is now estimated at 70,000. This fact in itself is illuminating". It should be understood that practically all these workers arc cast out of work against their will and with-no opportunity of even-raising an effective protest on their own behalf. In the early, days of the strike the "militant" section of the Melbourne wharf labourers seconded the action of the seamen by engaging in a determined attempt to expel from the wharves the loyalists who stuck to their employment in the industrial upheaval of 1917 and have since enjoyed preference. This attempt seems, however, to have presumably because in the conditions created by the maritime strike little employment is offering jn the ports of the Commonwealth for loyalists or any other section. As matters stand the struggle is definitely between the seamen and the rest of the commun l ity, and its consecpiences, of course, tell nowhere more severely than on the wage-earning population. The seamen, or rather the members of the extremist faction by whom their policy as an organisation is governed, are avowedly intent upon enforcing by "direct action" demands they have refused absolutely to submit to the Federal Arbitration Court. From the outset they have had an open opportunity of submitting their case to an impartial tribunal. They have .elected instead to spread misery and industrial chaos broadcast over the Commonwealth.'

The result of their policy is fairly well indicated in the fact that thus far seventy thousand workers who have neither part nor interest in the strike have been cast out of employment, and not a few of them reduced to dependence on charity for their own supjniit and that of their wives and .children. _ The position reached is a staggering illustration of the folly and criminality of such militant' Labour tactics. Towards Ihe end of June, when the strike was just over five, weeks old, the loss in wages alone for the whole of Australia was set down at £1,052,000. The number of persons then out of employment was estimated at 32,000. Now that the strike is in its eighth week, the number of unemployed is 70,000, and it will not be long before the loss in wages s:lone is advancing beyond two millions sterling. It may be noted for purposes of comparison that in May the Acting-Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, Mr. Watt, stated that during the preceding three years there had been 1647 strikes in Australia, resulting in the loss of eight million working days and £4,500,000 in wages. It is eyident that from the standpoint of waste and injury to the public, welfare wrought in a given time, the seamen of Australia are reducing even this appalling record to insignificance. To the loss of wages suffered by workers who have, no part in the strike, and the destitution and misery thus occasioned, must, of course, be added a further : enormous loss clue to the paralysis and chaotic disorganisation of industry, and this at a- time when it wa3 supremely necessary to concentrate upon'progressive development. The immediate results of the strike are seen in conditions ap-' proaching. famine in wide areas of the Commonwealth—only a day or two ago it was reported that a state of semi-famine exists in the northwestern part of Weston Australia— in abominable hardships inflicted on women and children, in industries brought to a standstill, and in the dislocation and threatened paralysis of municipal and national services; such as heating, lighting, and transport, which arc essential not only to the conduct of industry, but to the elementary comfort and welfare of the population. Some only of these evils and hardships admit of fairly speedy remedy.' It is not the least count in the indictment to be made out against the Australian seamen that they are doing all they can;, to destroy the future of their country by crippling it .at the time of all others when' unimpeded enterprise in promoting industrial and economic development is imperatively necessary if it is to take its due place in the race of progress. It is the blackest feature of the policy adopted by the seamen that its authors calculated deliberately upon the consequences it would entail. _ This was recently made manifest in an exposure by the Melbourne At/e of what it justly described as a fiendish plot. The following passage, quoted by the At/a from an address to members of the Seamen's Union from certain of its Queensland delegates, speaks for itself:

•As time rhps on we honestly boliovn Hint we hold winning cards,' when wc see (he chaos into which Ih« ;'omm.init,v, in Victoria especia.lly, has been lluow'n. The troulile, wo believe, will be rc-lerred ultimately to the I'edcrfll Governni'iit for settlement, nnd'it' this is done we nre of opinion I hat we will set nearly nil we are asking from- tho shipowners, of which at present tho Commonwealth' is the greatest.

The seamen's strilw resolves itself obviously into a cold-blooded .attempt to enforce demands upon the community by imposing unbearable conditions upon its poorest members. There is no difficulty about

classifying men who adopt or support such a policy. Their place is with the worst exploiters and profiteers of the age. The astonishing and humiliating feature of tho whole affair is that a.great country should submit even for a day to be used in this fashion by a gang of unscrupulous exploiters who would fink into insignificance if they wereopposed by a community resolute to defend its elementary rights. A hint that the Commonwealth Government is at last thinking of fulfilling its obvious duty by manning Hie ships regardless of the Seamen's Union is tho one redeeming feature of the current news.