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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 232, 29 March 1912, Page 4

THE COAL STRIKE. Although last year was one of unparallelled industrial unrest in Great Britain, this year, which is yet in its early "teens," promises to be even worse. Last August, for instance, 373,105 workmen were out on strike, but more than twice that number of men are affected by the great dispute that is now in course of progress at Home. Indeed, the difference of opinion between the masters and the men has practically reached a revolutionary stage, and the strike is being accompanied by scenes of misery and desolation almost as appalling as those associated with many of the world's tragedies of war and disease. This, indeed, is its most pitiable aspect, for the burden of the outbreak is falling upon the shoulders of the women and the children, who are least able to bear it. Of course, no great reform was ever won except at the expense of suffering in some quarter, but j in the present instance the loss and misery involved are abnormal. It is difficult at this distance to get a proper per- ! spective of this devastating quarrel, and [ it is easy to philosophise upon its pos- | sible causes and results. A writer in the I Fortnightly Eeview, discussing the rapid j development of the strike, attributes it to a deliberate application of the doctrines of the syndicalists—class war pure and simple. The pivot of syndicalism is, of course, the general strike, and its differentiating factor is its independence of socialism, which 'in France, where the I movement first began, is much discredit-

ed. "The new aim," he writes, "is merely | to transfer capital to the worker by the method of spoliation; no wages for union- j ists is the paradox of syndicalism. It j's curious how this approaches the philosophic anarchism of a quarter of a century ago, and still more curious to note the general disavowal of any attempt to remedy industrial ills through the me- f dium of political parties. 'A plague on both your houses' is the universal cry of the syndicalists. The object of the general strike is not to better conditions,! but to do away with mastership by ex- J propriating wealth." This is, of course, J very pretty analysing from a self-estab- ! lished basis, but the whole bottom of ] the writer's argument drops pitifully out when he is forced to admit that in a typical English town one-seventh of the wage-earners were receiving wages insufficient to keep them in bare physical efficiency, and that thirty per cent, of all London's working men receive wages below the subsistence level. The work- j ing man in the aggregate is more concerned with the finance of labor than with its philosophy, and the average coal miner or wharf lumper would not 'know a syndicalist from the Jabberwok. He will go blindly where his leaders lead, cheerfully carrying the cross in hope of the crown, and oblivious, at the call of his leaders, to all the set doctrines of social and political economy. He would not be human were he to act otherwise. It has been asserted that the application of the minimum wage is impossible in the majority of collieries, and that its adoption would close a large number of the pits in operation. But experience has not justified this bald assertion, and, even were it true, a country that pose* as standing in the forefront of civilisation in the world would be better employed in restricting its output than in starving its population. In the meantime the world is gazing with amazement at an industrial revolution has no parallel in its history, a revolution that is paialysing Great Britain's commerce, draining her exchequer, and inflicting terrible suffering upon untold .thousands of her people. It is to be j hoped that the passage of the Strike Bill ] and the institution of a National Wages Board will bring to a speedy end this worse than civil war, and that the leaders of both parties may be brought 10 "see with clear eyes the hidden truth," | and amicably settle this painful and unseemly deadlock.