The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 14, 1919. THE AUSTRALIAN UPHEAVAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 July 1919, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 14, 1919. THE AUSTRALIAN UPHEAVAL.

The latest developments in connection with the maritime strike in Australia are not very reassuring. Labor in Australia thoroughly understands its power, especially when anything like unanimity can be relied on, but the present strike has shown that even when a thousand seamen are determined they can defy all authority, paralyse industry, and throw out of work something approaching one hundred thousand workers, besides holding up all transport services. What seems to defy comprehension is that such a deplorable state of affairs is permitted to exist by the rest of the community. The remedy is so obvious that its application should be imperative, but it requires courage and the support of all sane people in the Commonwealth to meet and overcome the main feature of the trouble. Admitting that ocean transport is the life blood of Australia, and that a seamen's strike is directed a,gainst the most important activity that exists, it seems absurd that such a small section of the people as the seamen can successfully domineer the rest of the wage-earn-ers as well as the industrial magnates. Moreover, these militant seamen, by refusing to have their claims settled by the Arbitration Court have directly declined to listen to reason, and sooner than do so they will fight with the strike weapon, caring absolutely not one iota for the result of their dogged obstinacy on their fellow workers or the community at large. No country can either be prosperous or safe unless submission to law and order is obtained, and it is the duty of every Government to prevent any body of men from causing injury to their fallows, yet we find that in AusI trqlia over sixteen hundred strikes occurred in three years, as the resell t of which four and a half million in wages was lost, while the suffering entailed on women and children is beyond compute. The present is no time for the existence of waste or the forced abstinence from industrial energy, yet this comparative handful of seamen have been allowed for eight weeks to exercise their pernicious taetics and undermine the prosperity of the country. They are, however, unconcerned with everything except the exercise of their own petty will, even though the Commonwealth is likely to approach perilously near to a famine ; in some parts. No country can stand a paralysis of its essential industries without grave fears of a day of reckoning which may bring in its train horrors that wiil shake the very foundations of Australia. These seamen are not ! blind to the mischief that may ultimately result from their attempt to reduce the country to a state of

that they hold the winning cards wherewith to force the Government to concede all their demands, and they have no scruple as to methods whereby they are confident they can obtain their ends. The question thereby arises whether the tail is to wag the dog or the dog is to operate the tail. In other words: Are the seamen to be allowed to usurp the functions of the Government, or is the latter to hold the whip hand? In the minds of all rational beings there is but one answer to this query. The Government mijist rule or make way for a Government that will. It may fairly be claimed that the time has arrived when the Government should break this strike with a firm and determined hand by manning the ships in spite of the Seamen's Union. Although it is not everyone who is fitted for a seaman's work, there must be thousands in Australia who could be utilised for this service if the Government took hold of the situation and dealt with it as a noisome pestilence. Exceptional emergencies necessitate special tactics, and no greater emergency has faced the Commmonwealth than this deplorable strike. If it is to be a trial of strength the Government need have no fear of playing a losing game, but time presses, so that immediate action is necessary. To supplant these seamen by volunteers should be a matter of no difficulty, nor should the suppression of' any lawlessness that may result from such action present any difficulty. All 1 that is wanted is a resolute handling of the problem before it gets out of hand, and we venture to think that if the right means are adopted in the right way, the trouble would soon cease to exist. On the other hand any further supineness on the part of the Government will only serve as a stimulus to the Bolsheviks of Australia.