The Daily News. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1912. THE WAIHI STRIKE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 99, 12 September 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1912. THE WAIHI STRIKE.

With the advent of further police forces in Waihi and the gradually incroasii.'g employment of free labor there seems to be a reasonable prospect of the strike coming to an end. The mine, have now been idle for a period of nearly five months, and the closing down of them has meant a loss of something like £200.000 in gold production and of over £70,000 in wages to the members themselves. But these figures alone give but a very inadequate measure of the harm done by this strike. For it is hardly tod much to say that Waihi, so lately one of the most flourishing townships in the Dominion, is practically ruined, and that even if the strikers were to win now their success could not possibly repair all the damage done. Hundreds of the best workers have drifted away to other centres; the great industry on which the town depended has been disorganised and paralysed, the levies by which the strikers are supported are a very inadequate substitute for the high wages once earned there; and in the natural order of things the time must come, and that soon, when the outside unions will fail to respond to the call for help. From the strikers' point of view, it is surely advisable that the conflict should speedily be brought to a close. And from the standpoint of the public interest, it is obviously desirable 'that every effort should be made by the Government to facilitate the settlement oi a dispute which should never have been allowed to reach this dangerous staqr. and which so Jong as it lasts involves the possibility .if ~.V c n more serious conflicts between organised Labor and its

employe. There is .very sense iu thin estimate of tin; position, for any unbiassed person must have long since realised that the strike was unwilling! r taken by a body of contented and bappy Hieu at tin; dictation of a body of professional agitators of the Ben Tillet type, who feed and fatten upon labor for their own purposes and who have not hesitated to preach a gospel of disloyalty, treason and violence in pursuit of their ends. H this case, however, they have overeat Hicir mark, for (he firmness of the Covennuent and of the employers has proved equal to the strain that was put upon it, ; ,,„] u„. gradual di,phuvuicnr of 1h" strikers by free labor has practically rendered the miseries of the ,trik <'i-s during the past few months abortive. Nobody will be mere pleased than the men ii:-.>„selves to resume work, and all I bat (iu. leaders of this supremely futile and criminal revolt will carry away win. then i- (he realisation that they hav made the name of (he Federation ~f stink iu the nostrils of the com-

munity and have done an infinite amount of harm to the cause of legitimate labor.'