COLLAPSE OF AUSTRALIAN STRIKE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1736, 4 October 1917, Page 3

COLLAPSE OF AUSTRALIAN STRIKE.

MINERS RETURN TO WORK. VICTORY FOR THE GOVERNMENT. , Sydney, October 3. With the miners’ decision to resume, and excepting the seamen, who are still out, the great strike has virtually ended in a firm victory for Government rule, and with the participating unions badly worsted. In its breadth, its ulterior aims, and its disastrous industrial and financial effects, the upheaval is the worst in the history of the Commonwealth. It is difficult to conceive a bigger debacle than the unionists allowed themselves, on a flimsy pretext, to be led headlong into. Not only have they lost their cause and plunged unionism into welter and chaos, but they stand publicly condemned, ' their ranks riven, and with a fat aftermath of troubles, .arising directly and indirectly out of the strike, requiring straightening out. The outstanding features of the storm have been the unswerving determination of the Government to maintain the right to govern and conduct public business, the consistent public support backing that policy, and, with but a few exceptions, the orderly conduct of the general body of the strikers. From the start, on August 2nd to September 7th, the position was one of immoveable firmness^on both sides. Then hope dawned through the negotiations between Mr Holme, the Industrial Commissioner, and the Union representatives as to the outcome of which the railway men and trainmen admitted the hopelessness of the struggle, and agreed to go back under the denounced card system, with an inquiry to follow. There was much soreness in certain sections and among outside unions over the tonus of settlement, and for a time it looked like a renewal of the whole trouble, but the continued firmness of the Government and the pressure of circumstances, coupled with the steady drift of the strikers, compelled the adoption of the more reasonable course. The coal minors, who proved obdurate, have finally joined in tbe retreat from an impossible position. Necessarily it will be some time before normal conditions are restored, particularly as regards the depleted eoal supplies, and, besides, many hundreds must perforce remain idle till (be coal stocks are replenished. The places of many others have been tilled by volunteers, and it is likely that a fair proportion of those who offered under I'm promise that they would be retained if they so desired, will not choose to vacate good billets. The outlook for the strikers is not bright. Several unions have paid the price of deregistration for flouting tbe Arbitration Court, if ml both the Railway Commissioners and Ibo employers generally are making the terms of re-employment a clear indication (hat the lesson of the strike has not been lost upon them. At any rale, indications point to considerable modifications in tbe relations between employer and employee, so far ill least as tbe stronger unions are concerned in that phase of the question as well as (he strikers’ wages losses. A heavy blow lias been struck at business in both city and country. Tbe losses have yet to be counted, along with the moral effect of such a disastrous upheaval in the time of the Empire's need must have upon Australia and her national reputation elsewhere. The strikers were admittedly badly led, but held doggedly to (heir purpose, believing or unbelieving', and persisting that I lie whole fabric of unionism was threatened. - The elections and the anti-conscription campaigns had depleted their funds, and so many unions were involved in the new struggle that the response to the appeal for funds was necessarily not large. Some strike pay was issued, but only in doles, and the strikers were beginning to feel tbe pinch. The public suffered serious inconvenience, but, on the whole, came off well, thanks to tbe breadth and promptitude of (be Government measures are the unstinted response of volunteers to fill tbe gaps, ami their own cheerful readiness to fall in with the demands of the situation. Tbe actual effects of the dislocation are more real than apparent. But for the idle men on the streets and the idle Heels in the harbour, the strikers’ processions, the crowded trains and trams, and the shortage of gasp and electricity for ordinary lighting purposes, there Avcrc little outward signs of the great upheaval in progress.