WHO SUFFERS?

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9654, 19 November 1909, Page 4

WHO SUFFERS?

A sinister] peculiarity of such an industrial rough-up as the Newcastle strike is that its hurtful consequences fall heaviest and hardest upon those who are not active in it. The striker himself suffers, of course; but he is keyed up and sustained by excitement, he usually gets a stay in the shape of strike pay, and he is engaged in an enterprise the [result of which, if it is successful may permanently and substantially benefit him. It is very different with others whom the strike aitects. In his strike statement in Parliament, Mr Wade, the New South "wales Premier, pointed out how far the effects a dislocation of industrial services might go in various directions —in leaving wool and wheat where it is produced for want of transport, in preventing the carriage of meat and milk. Instances of this kind could be multiplied, and in fact would gritnlv multiply themrelve?, if a sprea linj strike set in, while thpy must te disastrously nume OU3 oven if tfce p> iti > irj n ii:u j-i

it is now. In either case, and differ ing perhaps only slightly in degree," there must be far flung deprivation and suffering. The worker who is thrown out of employment because of the iack of fuel to keep his industry going may have no Ptrike pay to tide him over the pre-Christmas season upon which the trouble has jarringly broken, and no prospect of .getting shorter hours or more wages out of the settlement. The best he can hope for then is period of peace in which he will be able, by pinching economy, to make up his lost financial ground He will no even get any of the profits to be made out of the miners own mine under the direction of Mr Bowling. Even the unionist who is kept at work will have to help finance those who are out. This is the more deplorable aspect of a strike.