THE STRIKE LEADERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 301, 29 January 1910, Page 4

THE STRIKE LEADERS.

'lho severity of the sentences imposed on the Sydney strike leaders for breaking the new strike laws must have come as"a surprise to most people. Rowling, the most prominent figure among the Strikers, was given the maximum of twelve mouths' imprisonment, and three of his confreres nine months' imprisonment without the option of a line. Just a little time before thirteen Strikers were convicted under the old •Industrial Disputes Act of having instigated a strike, and were sentenced to the maximum penalty (as far as the alternative of imprisonment is concerned) allowed under this Act—that is', each was fined £IOO, ill default two months' imprisonment. It will be remembered that after at first refusing the Judge's offer of time in which to pay. the accused changed their minds land accepted it. If the heaviness of the fines came as a surprise then, the present sentences' must come as a distinct and disturbing shock. The authorities evidently * are determined to put down the strike, or, at least, to -see that the provisions of the law are complied with, ht is impossible to withhold sympathy from the convicted men, who in their'own way have been .conscientiously doing all they can to bring übout an improvement in the lot of their follows, who, they felt, had been at the mercy of a combination as' unscrupulous as it was unlawful. Their resentment of the treatment and 'methods of this combination or vend, and their desire to place things on a ■better footing so far as the men were concerned, led to the strike. Strikes in themselves are bad for everybody concerned. The chief sufferers' are invariably the men themselves and their dependents. The miners were, extremely ill-advised to take the extreme step they did. They should have taken their ease to the proper constitutional ■body, where it would doubtless have, been impartially dealt with. Instead i the courts, for reasons we cannot understand, were s'et at defiance' as were t.ie 'strike laws. The question bad resolved Itself into whether the strikers (through their leaders) or constitutional authority were to prevail. As one of the 'Sydney papers points'-out, Rowling and his confreres took the position that they were above the law and responsible to a higher authority represented iby trade unionism. The position was untenable, and could have been decided •onlv in tiie one way. The law had to be vindicated, else it would have been but a dead letter. Trade unionism in itself is a good thing. Workers have just as much right to combine for improving their conditions' as employers have to combine to improve their own conditions and advance their interests, but trade unionists must not set -themselves above the law and endeavor to ■override constitutional authority. To be worth anything T'»e law -nust be treated as an expression of the people's will and be enforced, whatever the consequences to individual people may be. What effect the sentences may have on 'the great body of strikers is hard to saw but there are not wanting signs •thai the men are tiring of what to them must be a hopeless struggle, and showing a disposition to bring the present disastrous s'tate of affairs to an end by returning to work and placing their grievances before the proper constitutional bodv. a proceeding that jwould have taken place at the inception nf the trouble had wi=er counsels prevailed, and so Vive p-evpr'pfi unsold suffering, inconvenience. ,v::l loss.