The Daily News. WEDNESDAY AUGUST 14, 1912. MORAL OBLIQUITY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 74, 14 August 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY AUGUST 14, 1912. MORAL OBLIQUITY.

Our correspondent, "Tenax," who writes in another column much more moderately Mian the average agitator,' takes exception to our statement that the supporters of the Waihi strike are suffering from "moral obliquity." Of course, our opinion is wrong. We have only to support it the fact that, quite an apprej ciahle number of the labor unions in New Zealand and Australia Jiave declined to recognise or assist the strike, that it has the almost universal disapproval of a discriminating public, and that even a majority of those labor organisations who are financially supporting the strike are doing so more from motives of charity than from any conviction that they are supporting a principle. "Tenax" admits that the Waihi strikers are satisfied with their wages and conditions of labor, but urges that they arc striking for a principle. The strike, at any time, is a relic of barbarism that ought to be impossible in a civilised country, .but in the case of Waihi it is singularly foolish and ineffective. If the argument of "Teriax" is permissible it ought to be applied in a hundred and one directions in the political and domestic routine, with equal logic. In effect, he says that because the present Opposition cannot agree with the present Government, its members and all its supporters in the country should abandon ■their businesses and throw themselves upon the tender mercies of the Charitable Aid Board. He says that the Prohibitionists, who constitute a majoritv in the country, should lay down their tools and demand that their fellow-mea should kopp them in semi-luxurious indolence. until the "Moderates Conform to their desires. He says that the tobacconistsl should close their shops and become the guests of the general community until the grocers and the hotelkeepers cease to sell tobacco and cigarettes. lie says, in fact, that nobody should do anything at all that he does not like to do, but should lie down and whine until some person comes along and gives him tiie moon, or eighteenpence, or sixpenn'ortli of lollies for threepence, or whatever his innocent heart may desire. The position, of course, is quite intolerable, and if it were applied universally everybody with a grievance would go out on strike, and the one per cent, of the population who have no grievance would find themselves saddled with the maintenance of the other 99 per cent. If this does not constitute "moral obliquity" it is difficult to define the expiession. There is an excellent parallel to the situation in the attitude of Ulster on the Home Rule question, and that of the English Suffragettes. The I Suffragettes have set their cause back by years through their deplorable and hysterical violence and their general defiance of law and order, whilst Ulster is demanding that its intense minority on

the Home Bule question should take

precedence of the immerise majority in the sister counties. As Mr. Churchill aptly said in a speech which was cabled yesterday, this is a doctrine "whereby every lawless or disruptive movement in any part of the Empire can be justified, and whence every street bully with a brick-bat, and every crazy fanatic fumbling with a pistol may derive inspiration." Tho cases are absolutely on all fours. Both involve a question of principle, and the only way to endorse a principle that is- not generally approved is by moral suasion and the education of its opponents. The Waihi men are admittedly satisfied with their lot in life, yet they throw themselves upon public charity, to the distress of their fellow-unionists and. the vexation of the general public, simply because some of their leaders obstinately decline to realise that the puerile grievance which has precipitated the strike could be easily settled by a policy of very elementary diplomacy. "Good things," nays "Tcnax," "pnly come from chaos," but it is well tfiat he should remember that the reverse also holds—thatfihaos often comes fiom good things. There lias never bpen a strike in the world that has been looked at so askance—where it has not been actually "turned down" by the workers—as the' Waihi' strike. If "Tnnax" really objects to the accusation of "moral obliquity" we will unreservedly withdraw the expression, and state instead that he and his supporters are affected with a peculiarly mental astigmatism.