THE RIGHTS OF THE PUBLIC.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8992, 29 November 1907, Page 4

THE RIGHTS OF THE PUBLIC.

Now that the Newcastle strike is temporarily settled, the people and the press are beginning to consider that it is time the former should have a say in the question of strikes on tho ground that the non-combatants represent the largest number of victims. Why, it is asked, should they sit idly by and see their Industrie?

endangered and hundreds of thousands of citizens suffer because of a squabble between two sets of men, numerically sma'd, as to a trifling difference in the rates of pay. The "Sydney Morning Herald," referring to this phase of the question, says:—''We talk continually in the Legislature and out of it of arbitration and the Arbitration Courts, of tribunals of conciliation, of wages boards, of the claims of wage-earners and the rights of the employers, but the rights of the public are forgotten. It seems to be overlooked that while the man who earns and the man who pays wages are wrangling over their respective claims and rights, there is in the background another person who finds the money and trade for both." Whether it is possible to find a means for the intervention of that "other person" —the public—remains to be seen; but something will have to be done—and will doubtless be done in the near future—to put an end to the danger of disloca-, tion of all trade and commerce because of private disagreements between employers and employees concerned in one branch of industry only.