AN INDEFENSIBLE ATTACK

Hokitika Guardian, 10 July 1926, Page 3

AN INDEFENSIBLE ATTACK

AMERICAN VIEW OF STRIKE. NEW YORK, May 20. I'Yom the beginning of the general strike American public opinion lias been strongly on the side of the British Government. Thanks to the voluminous Press correspondence from London, there lias at no time been any confusion here about the real issue. Indeed, it can ho said confidently that because of the limited publication of newspapers in Great Britain the average American has been better informed about the strike throughout its course to date than the average person in Great Britain. To American eyes—and his means the eyes of all ranks of society, by no means excluding organised Labour — the general strike was an indefensible attack on orderly government. American Labour—-leaving out of'account a few Socialist and Qomnuinist organisations negligible in numbers and influence—feels that the British unions made a- strategical mistake —to call it nothing else—in attempting £o coerce the State and in disregarding the sanctity of contract. For all its sympathy with the coalminers, a sympathy shared by most other .ranks ol American Unit is determined not to undermine its own strong bargaining position and its solidarity by extending help to tlio.-o who, it seems, have rashly put themselves out of court. All Americans have- been united in the beliet that the British Government must win the struggle to save Great Britain fiom the greatest disaster in her histoi \. Americans see American trade and industry a loser to a considerable extent by the dislocation of industry in the home of the best customer of the United States. Some orders will come to America, which would otherwise have gone to England; some., indeed, for coal, have already been placed in America; hut these will ho no more than a small offset to the falling-off of American export trade to Great Britain which is expected. f " ast - vc ‘ ar Great Britain alone bought from the United States 1.031.877,000 dollars of the 4.909.000.000 dollars wroth of goods the United States sent abroad, and paid for them in part by sending t"> America 412,31(5,000 dollars worth of o-oods—not quite one-tenth of the imports into the United States. Great Briain was far and away America s best customer; Canada, the second best taking goods to the value of only about three-fifths of Great Britain s purchases. The largest single item m British purchases from the United States was cotton. Americans, according to their temperaments. are grieved or exasperate by wliat they consider to he the futility of' the general strike, because it was felt here that up to the time it broke out Great Britain, by to lowing the only right road, was making sure if slow, headway out ol her troubles. There was the strongest possible sympathy in the Tinted States with tin* efforts of the Prime Minister, Which were considered to he as effective as the extraordinary difficulties ot the situation would permit. The attempt of the strikers to suppress the newspapers was felt here to he the crowning follv ot their enteip,-; se a strong indictment by the strikers of the justness of their own cause. That single action probably did more than anything else to convince the American public that the unions were conscious of the inherent weakness of their position.