THE Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1892. BROKEN HILL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2433, 3 December 1892, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1892. BROKEN HILL.

The capitalists at Broken Hill are doubtless perfectly satisfied at the victory they have achieved. Not only have they completely crushed the strike, but they have succeeded in getting almost all the leaders sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, and thus, as they think, given the labor movement a heavy blow, from which it will not readily recover. So thought the managers of the Carnegie works in America, but who has lost by it ? Very possibly, after reflecting on the result of the Presidential election, the capitalists of America now see that it would have been just as well for them to have given their workpeople a share of the profits which Protection yielded to them. But .they were too greedy; they grasped. at too much, aud have, so to speak, lost all. They grasped at protecting themselves from competition, and though their position was improved thereby they gave no share of their increased prosperity to their workmen, but, on the contrary, proceeded to cut down their wages. The workmen have now turned round on them, and voted for reducing the Customs duties and removing the Protection which yielded jjthe capitalists such enormous profits, and the consequences to them will be serious. Would it not have been better for them to have kept the workmen on their side ? Would it not have been better to have given them an interest in maintaining Protection, than to convert them into revengeful enemies of it? The capitalists of America have found this out by this time, and the capitalists of Australia too will regret their action with reference to Broken Hill. The strike at Broken Hill was justifiable, inasmuch as the capitalists broke faith with the workers. At the time of the great strike the capitalists entered into a compact with the workers that for so many years the arrangement then arrived at should not be disturbed, provided the workmen did not join in the general strike. To this the workmen agreed, but when everything had quietened down, and the capitalists found themselves masters of the situation once more, they broke the agreement and proceeded to reduce wages. This, of course, forced the men to strike, and hence the trouble. The capitalists, no doubt, think they have scored heavily, but they will find out their mistake just exactly as the Americans have done. They will find that the result will be that the working men will return to Parliament men antagonistic to their interests, and that their present gain will be their future loss. Labor has numbers, and must win in the end, and the great severity with which the Broken Hill strikers have been treated will eventually lead to the wild justice of revenge.