The Dominion MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1921. AT BREAKING POINT

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 120, 14 February 1921, Page 4

The Dominion MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1921. AT BREAKING POINT

In a somewhat sensational article dealing with the industrial trouble in Australia the Sydney Daily 1 eleyraidi, forecasts serious developments in the struggle which is now paralysing the Commonwealth shipping and hampering trade and industry generally. Plainly put, the position may be described as having reached the limit from the employers’ point of view. The trouble with the seamen is not of itself the whole cause of the determination now reached to fight the issue to the bitter end. The attitude of the Seamen’s Union is merely the last straw an a long succession of industrial disturbances systematically organised by Labour extremists or Bolsheviks which has brought the load carried by the employer to breaking point. It is claimed, nnd fairly claimed in the present instance, that what the employers are lighting ds not legitimate trades unionism, but a form of Bolshevism—what is being fought is not the just claims of trades unionists to fair conditions of work and pay, but the refusal of a dominating' clique of extremists who have secured control of unionism to respect the agreements and awards to which they are parties. It will have been noted that the officials of the Seamen’s Union declare the .willingness of the men to go to work, and they are endeavouring to create the impression that they are being victimised by means of a lock-out.' The fact is that the men will go to work only on their own terms and without. the required guarantee ithat they will adhere to the agreement under which they should be' working. The position as stated is that they want officially to dictate the conditions which shall prevail aboard the ships on which they are employed, not apparently on any recognised principle except that of involving owners and the community in the maximum of expense, irritation, and trouble’. The Sydney Morniny Her‘dd holds the view that the majority of the seamen do not wish to pursue this course: that they have as keen a sense of industrial and civic responsibility as the average citizen, but they believe themselves to bn held in n union net from which they dare not try to escape. It is their diffidence and mistrust

of their own powers which make opportunity for the blatant extremists to seize the control of the organisation for their own mischievous ends.

This, no doubt, is. true enough, and the same remarks might be applied to most trades unions at the present time. But-it seems unlikely that any betterment in existing conditions’will be brought about by appeals to the sane and sensible members to assert themselves. The extremists may not, indeed are not, numerically' in a majority, but they dominate trades unionism in the Commonwealth as they largely dominate it here. It has been long contended that nothing but the pinch of hard times would bring the great body of trades unionists to a sense of the folly of the policy of constantly dislocating trade and industry with needless industrial strife, and adding unnecessarily to the burden of the employer and the rest' of the community. It would seem, however, _ that the patience of the employers in Australia has been exhausted before the full effects of hard times ha.ve had an opportunity to play their part. The challenge of the extremists has at last been taken up and it. is to be feared that the struggle will bo a bitter one in which the reasonable trades unionistsand the community at large will suffer with the extremists who are responsible for it all. In stating the position in regard to the shipping situation a week ago,'the Sydney Morning Herald made this comment:

The prolonged interruption [in shipping communication] is very distressing and harmful indeed, but, of course, until there is some assurance that once resumed it will be allowed to go on, to urge the immediate commissioning of the ships would be shortsighted public policy. The conditions which have been allowed to grow up are as a malignant bodily growth which calls for the use of the mosd drastic remedy once and for all—the surgeon's knife. Until the heroic thing is done the public interest will suffer in the future even more greatly than it has done in dhe past, for there is good reason to believe that the use of filie "job control” system to irritate and despoil the owners and the public is to bo extended as opportunity offers.

This appears to fairly represent a wide range of opinion in the Commonwealth. Matters industrially have been going from bad to worse, and it is felt that unless a definite stand is taken and the issue at any cost fought to a finish, anarchy and chaos inevitably must be the outcome. There is no disguising the fact that much the same feeling prevails in this Dominion. The public are thoroughly sick of the constant coal mine and waterside troubles, and would be glad to seo a firm stand made to end them. The present conditions of work are fair and reasonable, even generous in some, cases, and the “go slow” and irritation strikes are not intended to strengthen legitimate trades unionism, but to harass industry and to make it impossible for employers to carry nn. It mit* he hoped that wo will- be snared the struggle which is already Imusinn rroat suffering and hardship in the Commonwealth, but the fact rjinst be plainly faced bv all reasonable trades unionists that in certain quarters matters are very near to breaking point.