THE STRIKE NUISANCE

Hokitika Guardian, 7 August 1920, Page 4

THE STRIKE NUISANCE

(From tho Bulletin.;

'l'lio groat k trine which the other clay suspended or pa many suspended civilisation ill -Melbourne proneutoil the same lealuri'.s as the last one, and the next one w.il be no differ, ii_. It began in a small way, but one union alter another joined in sympathy, having much for the strikers and none l'or the community. The decision which set the ball rolling was not the result of a ballot but oi a mass meeting, which is a g.itlering mainly of the young, the ehraiiieuliy hostile, the men who have m ; holler occupation lor their spare time and the sort of men who like meetings. i.y sue.., process iielbounie was left without light, heat, power to run its iiuLstiies and its ia.ims, or much (.‘banco to cook its own or the baby’s food, in consequence oi which t ere is |ikely to be an increased death of he.hies even after the strike is forgotten. In oilier words, Melbourne was a battle-ground, and a battleground may always expect lo be wrecked. A" feeble, lazy State Government and a feeble, galvanic, Federal one bad four courses open to them when the trouble began—the same old four. Under their guidance the big city and the State might have surrendered right off, which would have meant that they must also surrender next time, and the ensuing time, and the time after that, and so on indefinitely. Or they might have gone on hunger strike, hoping that their sufferings would ultimately arouse the compassion of men like Tom Walsh, the striker, with aid from unions in other States, suffering less than anybody else. Or they might have met the strikers on the ground wnioh they had themselves selected and the one where, they fight best. Or finally, the Government might have resolved <sn a brisk counter-attack,. They adopted the third plan. That is to say, that an attempt was made to run a few of the suspended industries with a wholly insufficient number of hopelessly untrained volunteers wiio could only take up this work by leaving other work undone, so that success was a big Joss while failure was a bigger one. lUIO number of campaigns that have been won purely on the defensive isn’t large. A counter offensive would have ordered vastly better chances of success. And the way was, and always is, clear. The strikers have suspended a lot of public activities and put out °f use a vast amount of property that wasn’t theirs but tiie nation’s, the nation might so far as the surikers were concerned, suspend the rest of the public activities and put their share of the rest of the mechanism out of gear. This would include suspending the use of banks (savings and othey sosts) for the receipt or payment of strikers’ money, the use of the post office for the delivery or despatch of letteirs the use of telephones, telegraphs, gas motors, trains and tram-cars, the use of the law-courts as plaintiffs, the baby bonus and other things. A strike would end sooner for being thorough, reciprocal and mutual.

Tiu> position is nut wlnit it was even a handful of years ago. Australia has laboriously built up a supreme Government resting on the widest possible suffrage, and lias conitructed almost equally liberal State Governments, so that Labor may put its best men in power to give Labor by peaceful means whatever it wants, and make Itrulal industrial civil war and savage industrial brigandage obsolete e-vils. it Labor .really doesn’t know what ,it wants, then the destruction or the other people’s happiness and property isn’t the way to hud out. It it wants something that is impossible, then the starving of othsr people’s babies is a poor way to express its disappointments. If it prefers to put its worst men in offices. and trust its affairs largely to imported cranks who are willing to burn Australia to ashes if the advertisement will help them into a Parliament at Loudon or' Lublin, the country shouldn’t suffer for their monumental incapacity. Supposing the present sort of arbitration to be a failure, then Labor in office (it is there often enough) shoujd supply a kind that won’t fail, and Labor out of office should indicate what kind is wanted. Supposing it doesn’t know how to do this, it Jias no right to ravage the country in wild-beast fashion as a protest against its own ignorance. It should go to high school and learn. No party could have liad more absolute power than Labor did ki tile two big eastern States after May, 1915, when there wore purely Labor Federal Government over all. Yet the civil war went on just the same. It is a poor sort of monarch who, being entrusted with complete authority, can only rule his dominions by brigandage, yet that was and is the situation. Australia wants a well constructed, well-greased political machine which will run smoothly and silently—not managed by spasmodic stoppages, upheavals and riots ending in compromises that settle nothing, and disgraceful surrenders that settle nothing either. There are many other things which Labor demands that the community would be quite willing to grant if Labor in office would devise some way by which it could grant them legally and peacefully and without the grant being a humiliating surrender tp so mo bumptious and truculent industrial pirate—probably imported. The nation doesn’t want the control of its country taken out of its .hands by a dynasty of bumptious pirates. It suits the chronic striklc-leader amazingly well that the machinery for the settlement of industrial troubles should be so inefficient and rusty that lie can make a high place for himself ns the. medium through which redress or concession must, ho applied for—as the self-ap-pointed champion of the people, the king of the poor (having first manufactured the necessary poor to he king of) and the general court of appeal. But a democratic and self-governing people has no room for uncrowned kings. Presumably if these monarch's are still allowed to run riot, the machinery for the settlement of industrial troubles will still he allowed to remain rusty. If, on the other hand, they vigorously suppressed, then the party they claim to represent may take the trouble at last to produce in detail the scheme which will satisfy it in place of disorder and upheaval, and (where it is in office* will proceed to enact it.