The Daily News. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1911. KING LABOR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 151, 22 December 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1911. KING LABOR.

There is evidence that the position of affairs political is having a disquietcning effect on Labor, and in many parts of \"cw Zealand there is a strong indication that united toilers are dissatisfied with prevailing conditions. The partial collapse of the Arbitration Act, the cancellation of registration under it of some unions, and the very evident feeling that the weapon of the strike is still the most effective one are all indications of the apparent unrest. To the outsider the reasons for unrest among some groups of workers is quite unaccountable. They are apparently well paid, work reasonable hours and under reasonable conditions, so that the various small strikes and threat? to "go out" must lie accepted as the endeavor of organised labor to obtain even a greater power than it now wields. The methods are not always above reproach, and in the case of a great public service—such as the Auckland tramway system—a strike is a great punishment to the public as well as the employers. The fieneral Laborers' Union has cancelled its registration, and this, as in the case of other similar cancellations, is by way of protest against the Arbitration Court's awards. As has been said so many times, even though a union may have obtained its earlier demands by means of the Arbitration Court, and even though such demands represented their reasonable ambition, the refusal of the Court to grant subsequent demands has been regarded as a sinister design to "grind the faces of the poor." Although it cannot be shown that any body of workers—at least men workers—in New Zealand are working under bad conditions, the discontent is even more pronounced than it was in the days before the rights of Labor to reasonable wages and reasonable hours were conceded. The merest trifle in these days of engineered unrest is sufficient to make many men "down tools." and the machinery becomes so complete that the "engineers," to use the mildest lenn. are the only persons who refuse the worker the right to toil. The cancellation of registration under the Arbitration Act, however, givs men who 1 belonged to a union which is no longer

controlled by a Court award the right to act as they deem fit, and it is not at all certain that there would be so great a unity under the conditions. There is at the present time in New Zealand a distinct indication that many employers are heartily sick of being employers, but no organisation on their part can at any time be powerful enough to fight adequately organised and general refusal tc work on the part of employees. Tlie point is that employers cannot afford to go to the extreme of shutting down indefinitely, and this, as i» shown in older countries, is the only effective but cruel weapon they have. The fact that some Labor leaders obviously regard the employer, as having no possible rights and as a mere machine for the paymcit of wages is"'a severe handicap to industry. The increased concessions forced out of employers may in many cases be perfectly, just, 'but the point that better service and more skilled work is not a part of the concession, to the man who pays the wages is one that does not ■ strike the "engineers." Grudging service at the highest possible price is not good service, and the constant aggression of groups of workers who are apparently well paid very naturally reduces the skill in those trades affected. After all, the discontented wage-earners of New Zealand are not the New Zealand public, but the public is punished for the discontent of'a section of it. With its hand on the political machinery of the country, Labor might easily punish the public as <t has never been punished before. Labor unquestionably desires to be King in New Zealand), and as what is popularly called Labor is but a email portion of the public, it is not likely that the reign would be popular.