IMPERIAL POLITICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 89, 5 October 1911, Page 5

IMPERIAL POLITICS

THE INSURANCE KILL. By Cable—Press A-woeintinn—Cnnvripht Jxmdon, October 3. Mr. Lloyd-George, writing to Mr. Macnamara, said he had no idea of abandoning any part of the Insurance Bill. The Government would stand or fall by the Bill. SPEECH BY HOME SECRETARY. CAUSE OF LABOR UXREST. Received 4, 9.5 p.m. London, October 4. Mr. Winston Churchill, speaking at Dundee, declared that England wished to sec the Moroccan question settled oneo and for all. He attributed the labor unrest largely to a rise in food prices during the last fifteen years and the failure of wages to advance proportionately. The rise was due to the enormously increased output of gold. A sovereign would buy less clothing and food. While prices were easily raised to meet new conditions, wages moved very slowlv and jerkily, and often only after fierce quarrels between employers and employed. He personally favored the nationalisation of railways. Owing to their responsibilities to the public, railwaymen did not enjoy the full power of collective bargaining. Parliament must, therefore, see that they were not losers on this account. The Government would stake its existence on the passage of the Insurance Bill this year, despite the intrigues of Tory wire-pullers and the open hostility of the Socialist party. He sharply criticised Sir Edward Carson's Ulster campaign.

Mr. Robert Blancliard in his paper, the Clarion, points out what appears to him as the real moral and significance of the dockers' strike. He writes:—"lf the workers would stick together they would be irresistible. If: Thai is what I call 'The If Tremendous.' A tremendous 'if indeed. Now! Can my honorable confreres of the. honorable press see my drift? What is the moral of the strike? 'A hint of what would happen to London in time of war? No. The moral, put into shape of a Sphinx-question, is, 'What would happen to England if the workers could stick together? What made this strike so remarkable? Why was it so sudden, so spontaneous, so successful? Why did it so alarm the classes and the press? 'Hie answer may be given in one word: Federation. The various trade unions were federated. They stuck together. This strike is the first battle of the new army of Democracy; it is the first great victory: but it is not the last. The workers have votes enough to return three hundred members to Parliament. They have money enough to run a daily paper. The strikers are simply availing themselves of the lessons taught by the most superior and classy authorities on political economy," adds Mr. Blatchford. "Is not self-interest the strongest motive of mankind? Then why not of the docker ? Do not loi\\* wages, irregular employment, and dangerous work cause suffering and loss to the wives and children of the docker-? Do the other classes care a hang, or lift a finger to help? And is not the golden kevstone of the glorious arch of our faultless industrial system 'liberty of contract':' Who dare question the Briton's right to bargain? Let the worker strike for higher wwges; let the employer lock him out to compel him to take lower wages: and let the devil take the hindmost. There we have the great commrcial and industrial charter, which has made proud England what she is," says Mr. Blatchford. "And if for once in a way the golden rule works out so that the docker is not the hindmost, what remains to be s-.iid?"