The Cure for Strikes.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 60, 3 May 1912, Page 12

The Cure for Strikes.

CONCILIATION ANO ARBITRATION HELPLESS.

Personally, I- am of opinion that strikes will not be prevented by either conciliatory or arbitrative efforts. Wherever increases of wages are won by these means, the peaoe may be preserved for a time. But let tho result bo no improvement in tho workers' lot, or a throw-back in conditions, when "times are dull," and troublo is bound to ensue. I don't see how it can bo otherwise. There is a fundamental flaw in conciliation and arbitration a3 applied to labor disputes. If the worker is robbed —and we have to admit that ha is, or lot the bottom drop out of the Labor movement—ho won't forever bo satisfied to conciliate or arbitrate with the robber. Nobody else would do it. Imagine tlie Respectable Citizen, whose home has been raided by tho midnight burglar, summoning him fo appear before tho Arbitration Court. instea<d of handing him over te the police 1 Imagine the Itiglit-thinking Person., when his packets have been- rifled by private enterprise in the- form of a footpad, agreeing to permit a conciliation committee to decide how much of the plunder shall be returned to him and how much retained by the thief! Capitalistic industry is conducted on footpad principles. Tho worker is plundered as surely -as though ho had to hand up his purse, under the gentle stimulus of a pistol at his head, This condition, of affairs cannot be altered by conciliation; it is proof against arbitration. It is because the Labor Party recognises that, whilo approving of compulsory arbitration as a .palliative measure, it sets before it the only effective euro for social ills in its ultimate objective: "To eectiro to every wealthproducer tho full results of his industry," and reaches out to achieve tJ.i* .pxtitpeae along th© lines of public ownership.—H. E. Booto, ia Sydney 4 Worker."-