The Daily News. TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1921. INDUSTRIAL CHAOS.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 May 1921, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1921. INDUSTRIAL CHAOS.

Britain and America are at present both experiencing serious industrial troubles of considerable magnitude and [far-reaching effect. If the results arising out of organised strikes were confined to those immediately concerned therein, the position would not foe nearly so bad as is the case when a combination of labor steps in and plays havoc with trade, commerce, and industry. Mr. Lloyd George, when speaking at Maidstone on the subject of the miners’ strike, enquired: “Where is it going to end?” No answer to that question is possible until either the workers substitute sanity for recklessness, or the people compel the Government to take effective steps against this barbarous method of making the innocent suffer for the guilty. Mr. Dloyd George appeals to the people “to endure the affliction with the same patient and stubborn courage as that which piloted the nation through worse trouble.” “I am told every day,” said Mr. Lloyd George, “we. are seeking to starve the miners into surrender. I am afraid it is the other way about. The Miners’ Federation is seeking to starve the whole nation into a disastrous settlement of the strike.” Yet no remedy is available; the people must endure, lose their markets for coal, have their manufacturing industries paralysed, if not ruined, and stoically stand by till better times come. Faith, hope, trust and forbearance have their limits. For a nation that exists mainly on her industries to have to starve while the workers refrain from work is a serious enough disaster. How much the more intense becomes the situation when the combined forces of labor prevent the work being done by others and cause a general hold-up of all industrial activities? The British Premier emphasised the fact that in the first quarter of this year the mines lost twenty-five millions sterling, adding that the present strike was the second mine stoppage in six months, and the fourth threatened in two years. Well may we ask: “Where is it going to end?” The matter in dispute is not the usual demand for wages, but the institution of a national pool to prevent wages being*reduced by making the profitable mines pay towards the unprofitable. To establish a principle of that nature would deal the death blow at all successful enterprises, for they would have to bolster up all the failures, the plodders, the little men, and the parasites. If the principle is right for one industry it must be extended to all. No such absurd, impracticable, and impossible arrangement was ever launched, even by the wildest schemer bent on getting a share of other people’s money. It would be piracy —nothing less—as every manufacturer and trader must readily perceive, besides which it would offer a premium to those who live on their wits instead of working hard to achieve success. It is to obtain this unthinkable principle that the miners in the Motherland are fighting by refusing to work. Five million are now idle, representing a total of fifteen million including dependents, and a general paralysis of trade is in sight. The transport workers are being called upon to refuse to handle imported foreign coal, and, to make matters worse, the Federation is backing up thirty thousand stewards and cooks in their refusal to accept lower wages. As the sailors and firemen are members of the Federation the whole of the shipping may be held up at a time when it is more than ever essential for all to put forth their best efforts to enlarge, instead of restrict, every department of trade and industry, so as to rehabilitate the country’s financial position at the earliest possible moment, stabilise the currency, and appreciate its purchasing .ttat all classes of the

community may benefit. Unfortunately the shipping trouble in America is being marked by an outbreak of violence and sabotage that intensifies the evil. Unless the authorities repress this violence with fi.mness, even if drastic measures have to be used, it will develop into mob law. The use of firearms, clubs and other weapons by the strikers, as well as acts of destruction of property, may well be regarded as an act of rebellion, and should be treated accordingly. Much as extreme measures are to be deprecated, when the position is such that one section of the community makes war on'al'l the others there is only one effective means of putting an end to the trouble, otherwise the Government might better be nonexistent. Until Labor can conquer its own madness it can never conquer all other things.