Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News TUESDAY, MAY 26, 1908. THE TRAMWAY STRIKE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43330, 26 May 1908, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News

TUESDAY, MAY 26, 1908. THE TRAMWAY STRIKE.

This above all —to thine own self be true, And it must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

However much the general public may sympathize with the employees of the present situation, there is evidently a strong feeling against their action in resorting to the expedient of a strike. For the public, forced to look on and do nothing in a dispute where it is put to the inconvenience of having its means of conveyance suspended, naturally asks “ Where do I come in ?” If there were no means of

having such disputes settled other than by striking, things would be altogether different. As it is. with the machinery of the' law available for the adjusting of differences we feel that a strike is really a very extreme and also an unconstitutional way of settling differences. We would like to point out that in bringing in arbitration legislation the worker is not supposed to be framing laws which operate solely for his protection, and may be flouted at his pleasure, He is not at liberty to break a law on- the mere grounds of having been himself the author of it. That would involve a worse tyranny than the “ Divine Right of Kings.” Therefore since the employees of the Tramway Company had the Arbitration Court to appeal to, we feel that it has been ill-judged for them to rush into a strike as they have done, to the serious loss of the city tradesmen, and the grave inconvenience of the general .public, Even if, as Mr Rosser pointed out, they feel that for some of the points at issue the legal character of the Court might militate against the men’s being able to get an award which would satisfy their sense of what is fair to them, why can not Mr Rosser’s suggestion of an Appeal Board be carried into effect ? Sueh a Board would be composed of representatives from both sides with a representation from the public as well. This would leave the two parties concerned free to thresh out these grievances which do not so much involve legal points, without the necessity of calling into operation the machinery of the law. The public is a fair minded body, and in questions requiring only commonsense coupled with the desire for fair play could very reasonably be asked to give its voice. Besides, as Mr Rosser points out (and we feel that it is a pity this did not occur to him sooner) the public who patronise the Company and for the right to use whose roads the Company pays £4OO per annum has a right to be considered. Whatever sympathy they may have entertained for the men in the former strike, those surburban residents who have to take long and fatiguing walks, now find their sympathies put to a very severe test, especially as there appears to be a prospect of a protracted struggle, and public sympathy is a quality which it is just as well to retain.