PLAIN SOCIAL SABOTAGE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1750, 23 August 1917, Page 4

PLAIN SOCIAL SABOTAGE.

The Sydney Bulletin, which in the past Inis shown a strong' leaning to labour unionism, writing of the strike in its eurretit issue, says: “This strike is just plain social sabotage. The men who went on strike had not even (he excuse of possessing a tangible grievance. They were not seeking the redress of any wrong. Stating (he case for themselves, the only justification they could produce was an assertion that the time-cards would lead to grievances in the future. Asked to prove 1 his, they declined the invitation. Asked to give the system a trial and produce the grievances of inspection when they arrived, they declined some more. They simply insisted on denying the right of their own Department to institute a change of internal management, ami on asserting their own right to either have their way or deal out stoush to the community. On the basis of the strikers’ case not being bogus, all this meant that a crowd of rebels was trying to browbeat the State into submission through fear. • There are perilous times ahead of Australia. Economic problems of a (diameter the population has never even dreamed about are in the making. Is there anyone who imagines that these will be met and dealt with by the maintenance of such industrial conditions as are prevalent to-day? It is very doubtful, for those conditions are a sham from top to bottom, and the Labour movement is rapidly becoming a sham, too. As it is to-day, it stands for one thing only —bashing a public which earns hostility by leaving itself open to attack. No State ever stood that sort of thing indefinitely, and Australia Avilk not, because Australia has to live,”