The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1913. INDUSTRIAL PEACE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 95, 22 December 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1913. INDUSTRIAL PEACE.

Though in this inland centre we have not .perhaps individually realised all that the strike of watersjde workers really meant to the country in the loss and dislocation of business, we have each probably felt some of the inconvenience which the whole Dominion has suffered. We have also, almost without exception, realised the crass folly of the wretched business, and the foolishness of strike leaders, with their frothy talk and loud boasts, gulling men to believe that anything hut disaster could be ahead. With the ports open and the seamen, not to lie coerced into further folly, the position was very plain: the country utterly refused to be at the dictation of the lied Federation. It is matter lor great satisfaction that the peaceful resumption of industry has come about, and we may reasonably expect that oven the miners in those isolated cases \ where they are waiting until they have conferred further with the proprietors,: will be cheerily at work early in the J New Year. Another experience has I been' added to the many already gainetj of the cruel folly and uselessness of the strike from labour's standpoint, and should occasion for disagreement unhappily arise in any industry the workers will more than ever pause before resorting to it. The enormous loss of wages and the suffering which is too often entailed on the wives and children of the men who go on strike can never be made up. Too often also it has turned out that the strike has noti resulted in bettering the terms of em-.' ployment, while in every instance! where—without cessation of work or I ' loss of any kind—the aid of arbitration, has been invoked if there has been one 1 shadow of evidence in favour of thei workman's demands those demands ( have been granted. It is fitting thatr tin's Christmas Season we are once, more promised complete industrial peace in New Zealand, and with theU lesson just learned it is not likely that this peace will be readily broken.