A FALSE CRY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 64, 15 November 1913, Page 4

A FALSE CRY.

What is the crisis all about? Why is the country being subjected to all! the inconvenience, discomfort, and loss: that are being felt, in greater or less measure by every section of the coin-; munity? Why is the trade of the Do-: minion being held up and why are: the ordinary services of civilisation,! such as.the transmission of mails, he-, ing either suspended or else carried on with difficulty '? These are the; questions asked by the Otago Daily Times in an article which it heads! "A False Cry." Our contemporary.; goes on to sav: It is now alleged on behalf of the strikers that their ac-j tion is intended to vindicate the right to combine and protect their system of organisation. The allegation, be-1 sides being an afterthought, is a transparent absurdity. To declare that the employers are seeking to crush union* ism is to say what is manifestly false. The employers as a class are not only] not opposed to unionism hut are strongly in favor of it, and those .who assert that the principle of unionism is being menaced in Xew Zealand through the conduct of the employers are guilty of playing in an unworthy and disreputable manner upon the feelings of the simple people in the community. The intelligent working man must, however, see through the attempt that is being made to embroil bint in the present struggle bois not a struggle between the classes. It is, on the contrary, a struggle between those who would reduce our industrial system to an anarchical level and those who would have the, transaction of the ordinary processes of industrialism regulated in such a way as would secure settled conditions to employers and employees alike.