The Daily News. MONDAY, MAY 27, 1912. BACKS TO THE WALL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 283, 27 May 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, MAY 27, 1912. BACKS TO THE WALL.

In any measures taken by organised labor to atop the output of gold the harshest results fall on the miners themselves. In Waihi, as has been shown, the whole trouble has been caused by the New Zealand Federation of Labor. The immediate result of the action of unthinking anarchists who do not personally suffer is, as we took the liberty of prophesying, to make the miner-owners put their backs to the wall, shelter under the law and suspend operations indefinitely. This suspension is of great interest to every person in New Zealand, for it begins the era of retaliation which has been forced on those who finance industries and who are in the present state of society absolutely essential to the life of the worker. The Waihi Company as an employer has broken no law. It hasn't even offended any thin-skinned workers. It has conceded every reasonable request in regard to hours, conditions and safe working. It has been virtually ordered to shut down during the pleasure of a few men. When a strike was forced on the mass of Waihi miiiers it was forced on the dictation of a few leaders, and no ballot was attempted. Ev«ry married man in the mines affected was forced out of work without his personal consent. What was prophesied occurred. The companies are giving notice of appeal in the Warden's Court for protection. Protection in a mining district means that the mines are manned with the smallest possible number of men required by the Act. The period of protection suggested is six months. Waihi in that time will be depopulated, but meantime miners who have settled down on miner's right leaseholds and who have built houses and reared families will suffer. The Federation of Labor is probably proud of its work. It has made it impossible for anyone in Waihi to live decently. It has stopped wages and credit. It has driven out the men who are not anchored with families. It has given the foreign investor a very good reason for keeping his pocket buttoned. And it has discredited New Zealand. The deadlock at Reefton might not have occurred if the Waihi bother had not happened, but the ground for cessation of work is entirely dissimilar. There the miners appear to have a distinct grievance against the mine-owners, who, by the way,' are

going to fight in exactly the same way as the Waihi mine-owners are fighting. The grievance is that the miners refuse to work patent drills lone-handed, because the work is dangerous to life and health. It appears that a man can't work a drill and keep a spray operating properly. The spray is necessary to I;"flp a face moist, so that the quartz jmrtides ground by the drill are not breathed by the driller, thus causing miners' complaint. But although this is a real and tangible grievance as distinct from the paltry and irritating ground of dissention in Waihi, it is the direct result of the machinations of that sinister body, the New Zealand Federation of Labor, which plans to keep the available men at the lowest possible ebb and which has been able to prevent Australian miners coming to New Zealand in sufficient numbers to meet demands. Mining development in New Zealand is not only dependent on outsiders for capital, but on other countries for manpower. We do not rear miners in the necessary numbers, and therefore our mining operations are dependent to a large extent on the imported person. It has already been stated as an article of Ministerial faith that it is wrong to import skilled workers, and so the State, which is the law, aids the law-breaker—-the Federation of Labor. The idea that all embodied workers should be considered disloyal when they refuse to aid by strike or contribution "comrades" with grievances is purely anarchical. In the case of mine-manning, the industry in any given field is absolutely in the power of the wage-earners. If 1500 men come put of Waihi mines, it is absolutely impossible to continue working even with "scab" labor, for such labor is not available. The Government aids the Federation by deciding that New Zealand is no place for imported skilled labor in quantities, and New Zealand flatters itself that as a country of industrial disputes it is grown-up. The salient fact is that New Zealand gold-mining has received the deadliest blow it has ever sustained, that the united mine-owners are prepared for it; and must inevitably triumph by employing what is a perfectly legal lock-out. Interest at the moment will centre in the finding of the Warden of the Hauraki mining district. If he is a Labor Federationist at heart he will refuse protection and diminution of manning. If he conceives the attitude •of the demagogues to be an intolerable interference with a, great and well-man-aged industry he will grant protection. If he does not grant protection the Waihi Company cannot get men—in which case ] abandonment and re-possession by the State are the only other alternatives. The idea of the State as controller of the Upper Thames goldfields certainly does not appeal to anyone who knows that efficiency, discipline and economy are prime necessities for successful gold-win-' ning. |