The Daily News. TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1912. A RUINED TOWN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 67, 6 August 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1912. A RUINED TOWN.

The picture drawn of the condition of affairs at Waihi by the Conciliation Commissioners, who had made special enquiries 011 the'spot on behalf of the Government, serves to show the extent to which a few misguided, arrogant and ignorant men can inflict harm 011 a peaceful and prosperous community. The bottom of the town, the Commissioners say, has been knocked out, and "you can't believe how (bad things are." The town is half empty, the people have been glad to get away from the place at any price, and have sacrificed their houses and furniture for a few pounds, and sickness, due to the insanitary conditions consequent on the stoppage of water supply for flushing purposes, and distress and hardship are stalking abroad. It is an unpleasant picture, and one that the present writer knows from recent personal experiences in the affected town, is not overdrawn. The business people of the town do not, as a matter of fact, care to say how really bad things are. They are hoping agiainst hope that something wiil soon happen to improve matters, and hesitate to throw up the sponge until necessity compels them to. The Red Federaiionists, whose insane policy has | brought about the ruin of tho town, are seemingly as truculent and irreaponsible as ever, and whilst funds last it is not expected that they will be brought to their, senses. These men are blind to reason and responsibility and have behaved, and still behave, like so many spoilt children, wanting their own way or nothing. They do not see that the chief sufferers by a strike and the ensuing stoppage of work are themselves and their dependents. The strike weapon is an anomalous and ineffective weapon in a country like this where the wages man has equal political rights to the capitalist and where machinery for the settlement of industrial troubles exists. The Waihi men -had no industrial grievance—how could they when they received an average wage of Us 6d per day for practically unskilled work, some of them as much as 25s per day!—but sought to hold up the mines to coerce a [ section of the workers to do their sweet bidding. Had the mine-owners used the forcing tactic* to only ouc-ienih the extent the Federationist? unhestit.alinglv J! Hi) IlliWll-iimgly IM'd thrill, t llf'V would lmvi> iwrsi exccrati'ii from o:ir rail of the Dominion to the other, and we would have seen the Labor Department quicklv step in and tiring the owners to heel. For downright tyranny no employer can equal the Red Federal ionisls. They tyrannise (];e peaceable, reasonable workers, who have no sympathy with strikes or the cause of the present trouble; they tyrannise the mine-owners-; and practically. by picketing l.iie mine properties, take charge of other people's property; tliey tyrannise, the tradespeople because they are unable to give them the credit they desire; and they tvraunise tho men belonging to the Engine Drivers' Union because they seek to come under '

(.ho arbitration laws of the country. These tyrants have done their very

worst. It does not matter now whether the strike ends in a week or a year. Unfortunately, whilst workers are so foolish as to supply the strikers with funds the latter cannot have read to them the lesson they so richly deserve. We only hope that those who are furnishing the sinews of war will soon realise that the Waihi Red Federationists are undeserving of the slightest help or sympathy, and are the greatest enemies confronting the Labor Party in the Dominion today.