INSANITY OF STRIKE METHOD.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 May 1921, Page 3

INSANITY OF STRIKE METHOD.

STARVING LABOR TO BEAT CAPITAL.

The story is told of an African chiefwho was advised that in order to defeat the approaching enemy he should kill of! all the cattle in the surrounding country and thus leave their foes nothing to live upon when they had pressed into the interior. This was done only for the tribe to learn that whilst there was no food for their foes there was none for themselves either. It is this kind of suicidal policy that the militant revolutionary socialists preach. They urge the workers to defeat the capitalists by depleting the stocks that are necessary for the nation’s ekistence, and the workers learn, often when it is too late, that they have starved themselves into a condition which compels them to retreat or surrender.

It is just cabled out that Mr. Cramp says the executive of the English Railwaymen’s Union have decided “not to handle coal for commercial purposes.” It would appear from this that whilst the railway men and transport workers’ organisations broke with the Miners’ Federation on the issue of enforcing a general strike against the nation, the Kailwaymen’s Union is ready for a limited general boycott of the commodity the nation most needs.

We are taking it that the coal miners have very good reasons for fighting against any heavy reduction of wages. Their Unions and Federation are fully justified in defending their members’ interests by all reasonable methods. That ‘brings us to the crucial question. Is the strike method a reasonable or a just method ? Our opinion is that it is neither just nor wise. To commence .with, the strike, particularly in any key industry, is an attack upon those who are innocent of any offensive action against the attacking party. It is sometimes an attempt to coerce the nation on an issue which the people in general have never had a voice in. Where the strike method appears to us most indefensible is that, in general, it affects the poorest members of society most injuriously. A strike is like a siege. Those with the greatest supplies can exist the longest and suffer least. The general strike has been described as general foolishness. We our readers that the strike method must of necessity prove ineffective in procuring social reforms, or advantages for the masses, as it entails the cutting off of supplies from those who have to carry on the fight. When Napoleon said that “an army moves' on its stomach,” he said what was true of an industrial army as well as any other. If changes are to be made in our economic system they cannot be effected by the workers in starving the nation, or themselves. The idea is wholly irrational, and, therefore, we conclude that the strike method is an insane one.

(Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League.)