FOOLED.

Te Puke Times, Volume II, Issue II, 16 December 1913, Page 3

FOOLED.

'The Strike Bosses would seem ( to.be'reaping some of the har- ' vest of mischief they have sown. ' They succeeded well enough for a time with their- strife-making, ' and they fooled . their following handsomely with rash promises and wilder prophecies'concerning the powers* they wielded, And . now their dupes are waking up. It has been evident for so».\e time past that the men who were dragged into trouble by the Federation of Labour had been sacrificed without any hope of doing any good to the waterside working The carters,'and the seamen, and the firemen who were induced to 'come out,' and the builders' labourers, the bricklayers, and the others. All these have realised, or are beginning to do so, the foolishness of the action of their leaders. Take for instance .the seamen and firemen of the Maunganui now stranded •here. What possible good has their calling out'done? Not one atom of good. On the other hand, they laid themselves open to penalties: they have lost their pay and their jobs; and they have met with ingratitude and neelect and been treated in the shabbiest fashion by the local strikers whose cause they had espoused. Is it surprising in, the circumstances that they are seething with discontent, and wholly disgusted ? So also with many scores of others,, Each dry brings fresh evidence of discontent amongst the,strikers, and violent altercations occur at their meetings. The men are revising how they have been fooled; they and their families are feeling the pinch.. The strike pay about which the leaders talked so confidently has failed to materialise; Christmas is'near at hand,.and the wives and families are faced with"the prospect of a cheerless I time-themen want to get back to work. Their merciless leaders would, however, still prolong the hopeless struggle and pile up more misery for the women and children, and more worry and , idleness for the men. It is some consolation to know that these ' same leaders are beginning to meet with some of the worry and anxiety they have so liberally J and callously brought on others. A large section of the men arc in open revolt. They at last realise that they have nothing to , gain and everything to. bse by 1 continuing idle. The end now, is very near.-Dominion.