The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 1917. PASSING OF THE STRIKE.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 8 March 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 1917. PASSING OF THE STRIKE.

("With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and 'Waimarino News);

It has often been pointed out in these columns that labour strikes are neither good for the country or for the strikers themselves; that strikes are entirely void ,of business sense and every other kind ot good sense; tney are to the community what the highwayman’s bludgeon or sandbag is to the waylaid individual. It has been contended that labour should Do above strikes, hold itself aloof from them because they savour too much of the might is right doctrine improperly applied. If labour had expended as much thought, energy and money in organisation and in moulding Parliament into a just view of labour matters as between employer and employee, much more real permanent good could have been accomplished without inflicting a tithe of the hardship and inconvenience on the masses of the people not directly concerned. Yet there have been occasions when strikes were just and desirable; occasions in which only a strike could stem the passion of greed and cruelty from which some section of otherwise helpless labour could free itself from the yoke of the slave master and sweater. Those occasions should not recur in the future, as labour has had the experience, opportunity, and time to so perfect their arrangements that no section of labour should be too small to be brought under national organisation. There ar e not wanting signs that the days of striking are nearing an end; that there is a prospect that strikes may, in the near future, become obsolete end drop into desuetude; saner, more humane, quicker, and more profitable means having lyaen evolved as a result of better and wider organisation. Labour is fast realising that her most powerful weapon has no relation to negative, destructive action, but rather to positive and constructive processes. Under organisation an educated and highly intelligent new labour is examining the newly discovered power of the franchise, and is analysing aruT

dissecting its inherent virtues, and

sees therein all the powers in a superlative degree that it needs to bring about a fair adjustment between captains of industry and the workers. A class of brass-mouthed, leather-lunged ignorant, conscienceless labour has for some time run riot in the Australian Commonwealth, but even there the consensus of educated labour views has risen superior to the anarchy and murder gang teachings. In Newcastle, the very home and hotbed of strikes, the strike error has been discovered, and strikes are now being discouraged by the very men and labour bodies that were wont to hatch and advocate them. The Newcastle Trades and Labour Council has resolved that steps should be taken to prevent strikes. The various speakers to the resolution agreed that strikes did no good, and that they generally hfl the strikers harder than they hit the employer. The Newcastle Labour Council has asked the Sydney Labour Council to call a conference of all Labour Councils to consider means of preventing ■ strikes, and in the best interests of Australian labour it is devoutly to be hoped that this request will be heartily acceded to. If labour does not secure an entirely fair adjustment as between employer and man, by the use of the franchise it is an admission that there is treachery in the labour camp that needs mercilessly rooting out, or that there is a fatal lack of the use of the best and most intelligent organising methods. Labour will no longer listen to ignorance and intolerance from its own self-im-posed leaders or from employers, but with the reshuffling of the industrial cards that is certain to come it is apparent the boomerang strike will be abandoned in favour of much more enlightened and effective weapons. It is a long step in the right direction /when Commonwealth Labour Councils have the courage to not only admit the strike error, but to actively insti-

tute a propaganda to have strikes thrust into an oblivion from which there should never have been any need for their Strikes have played an important part in the gradual emahcipaton of labour from the “Ascripti Glebac” days, when he was clothed scantily in the coarsest of sackcloth, and was bought and sold with the estate on which he came into existence, when he was virtually the slave of the Lord of the Manor, with no real political existence. It is only when extremes are viewed that fullest significance' is given to the evoluton of labour from those old times to the proud position it holds at the present day. What has come from the Newcastle Labour Council is a distinct indications of a further upward move for labour. When labour leaders learn, and open their eyes to the fact that strikes play right into the hands of greed, and that they are more disastrous to labour than they are to those labour is seeking to punish, there arises a mental pictufb oi a glorious, ' peaceful, happy future for every section and class of labour. We are facing the days when it will be realised that the Empire is only safe from the national brigand and pirate when its citizens have realised that all must work.