INDUSTRIAL CONFLICTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 October 1920, Page 8

INDUSTRIAL CONFLICTS.

BIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES. WHERE DOES THE PUBLIC COME IN. The most vital questions of to-day are undoubtedly those relating to Industry. Wc are becoming inured to constant industrial troubles. No sooner 13 one conflict over than another arises. So much is this the case that many people arc becoming fatalists in regard \</ theso matters and are inclined to think that there ia no remedy for it all. Our opinion is that a remedy can be found in a quickened sense of responsibility. It is unfortunately the case that in nearly all disputes that arise, the disputing parties display much more concern for their rights than they do for their responsibilities. The employers and workers are much on the same level in this respect. "We have a right to strike," say the Labourites, and "We have a right to lock out in return," say the employers. Thus the game of attack and reprisal goes on from the effects of which the public suffer all the time.

No one will deny that in the abstract employers have the right to refuse to employ, and workers to refuse employment. They are both within their legal rights in letting the works and machinery stand idle if they are so disposed. Equally with employers : and employed, all buyers and sellers have the right to decline selling or buying. If, however, we all acted on: our rights to do things in the negative j way of not doing them, general ruin ! would be the inevitable outcome. Yet the plea of industrial disputants is always "their rights, their rights;" and of their responsibility to society; to the community where the dispute arises; to the people affected who are not parties to the disuute; to the women and children who probably suffer more than any, we hear lmi very little. It is in human na'.ure, especially the less intellectual, that, when a quarrel arises between two parties, the participants can think of nobody but them-

selves That this incessant talk about our rights and general forgctfulness of our responsibilities is irrational, is seen by a glance at what the state of Society would be if attack and reprisal was freely recognised as a legitimate way of fettling personal differences between individual citizens, and there were no legal means of preventing breaches of the peace in the general interest of i Soeietv.

WHERE DOES THE PUBLIC COME IN?

The Watersiders refuse to man a boat j and the employers in return refuse to i let them work other boats. The coal i miners will not work at eertain times, i and the employers hold the mine closed j at other times. It is true that the j employers have a right to defend' themselves. "What we desire thought of,: however, is "Where does the public ; oome in?" Whilst these combatants are! testing their rights and powers. Has ; the general body of the people no right j to protection from the effects of these ' i constant stoppages of trade? If the i ! right to strike, and the right to lookout! i is conceded should it not be only on i : the reasonable ground that these rights ; ; are exercised with a full sense of resj ponsibility to the public? On what' I ground have industrial disputants the i right to cause injury to the general ■ ! public without cheek?, was a question j i put to Mr. Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labour. It is the question we desire to put to the Labour Unions and Employers Associations of New Zealand. Can they answer it? If not, we would respectfully ur?e litem to dwell less upon their rights in all future disputes and think more of their responsibilities to the public. The outstanding demand is for industrial activity and steady progress, and no sectional rights should have precedence over the public needs. (Contributed by the N,Z. Welfare League.)