The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, JUNE 28, 1926..

Hokitika Guardian, 28 June 1926, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, JUNE 28, 1926..

THE LAST STRAW. News by the mail brings much detail about the great strike at Home early Ist month, and particulars of why the strike failed and was in point of foot

a fiasco so far as the originators of the event were concerned. The event was an object lesson to plain thinking democrats and though the course of the strike cost millions, both to the country and to individual trades, the general impression seems to be that “the memorable ten days duration” was cheap at the price. The last straw to determine live end of the strike was a black (or rather Red) episode, namely the derailing of the Scotch express. Itwas an omen of what might follow, if sanity did not prevail. The event had a sobering effort on the real workers, whose demeanour bad been otherwise admirable. The event was in point of fact, the last straw which broke the back of the Trade Union Moderates, and after some straight talking tho general strike was called off. But (rom tin? outset there was a fooling that a general strike- was a mistake. The Red leaders who had worked themselves into the Trade Union Congress were hut a section, certainly a noisy and agressivo section, hut they outspoke the milder members, who strongly opposed extreme measures. Tho Reds, however used the respectable trade union leaders as decoys, and it lias been said that had tho Red scheme worked according to plan, the Ramsay MacDonalds, the ,T. H. Thomases, tlic “Uncle” Arthur Hendersons, and the rest of tine smug burgeois crew would have been swept aside ns impotently as were the Kerenskys of the first Russian Revolution. A good many sober trade unionists, men who aimed honestly at effecting something like a social revolution in Britain by constitutional means, must have suspected the true inwardness of their Red associates. But- they weakly reasoned among themselves that these subterranean forces wore more or less negligible. Those who were not against them were with them. And so they tolerated Red allies for the sake of their apparent virile trade unionism. How the Reds managed to stampede the moderates of the Trades Union Congress into proclaiming a general strike, just when a settlement of the cosil, negotiations was within sight, and grasp, must always remain a psychological puzzle. It must have been skilfully and plausibly done. But the general strike was called on. The nation was surrendered to a stranglehold, and the special correspondents of newspapers all over the world, hastily gathered in London to record the epiisdes of Britain amid the revolution. The thing started promisingly. There was immense dsloc-aton and general paralysis. But the foreign observers soon discovered—with open admiration —that Moscow had mistaken the temper of the British people, and the fibre of Mr Baldwin’s Ministry. As a matter of fact, there is good reason to believe tine Congress would never have been cozened into a general

strike, but for a sure and certain conviction that it would never come into operation. They were positive the Government would funk the issue. Something like consternation reigned amongst the authors of the general strike when their challenge was taken up. The Government stood firm and the Prime Minister was the most firm of all. He gauged the situation, and resolved to stand solid. It was a constitutional point, a direct issue. It was essential to retain constitutional power and authority, and defeat the efforts of those who would subvert 1 w and order that they might rule. So. Mr Baldwin stood to his guns, and the failure of the general strike became so obvious that the men began to dribble back. With the falling of the last straw referred to above, the way to finality was made easy, and the Trades I Union Congress capitulated. It was a great lesson to the nation, if not to 1 the world at large, and out of the catastrophe, Mr Baldwin emerged ns the hero of the nation. As a correspondent has put it, the Prime Minister has shown himself an admirably levelheaded, steady, dogged John Bull. And nothing could be better than bis quiet advice to the nation, tendered in the hour of triumph for the great cause of constitutional democracy. Mr Baldwin proclaimed it “a victory for common sense,” and besought the people “to look forward rather than to glance back.” The Trades Unions have learned a lesson, generally, and industry may lie considered safe for democracy for the future. The comment of some of the leaders was pregnant with meaning. For instance, Mr Ramsay MacDonald made the apt simile that a general strike was like a man trying to raise himself by the seat of his trousers. It- was, in point of fact, the impossible, as a means or measure to atltain success. And so ended tlie great strike.