INDUSTRIAL UNREST.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10138, 8 November 1910, Page 4

INDUSTRIAL UNREST.

During the past few months the newspapers in the Dominion have been flooded with cablegrams from north, south, east and west, giving details of strikes, lock-out's, and industrial upheavals. Never in the history of modern times, has there been such a revolutionary spirit in the industrial atmosphere. The London Spectator, discussing the subject as it applies to the Motherland, says that all over the country there appears at the present moment to be a condition of unrest among the wage-earning classes which may seriously imperil the whole Trade Union organisation. What the causes of this unrest may be it is not easy •to say.' To some extent it may conceivably bo due to Socialist propaganda. The essence of that propaganda is the preaching of the doctrine of discontent. The old Trade Unionists, at an x y rate in recent years, have constantly urged that the end to be aimed at is a friendlier relation between masters and men; the Socialists, on the contrary, teach that the capitalist is an enemy with whom there should be no parleying, and for whom there should be no quarter. At the same time, they have encouraged the idea that Trade Unionism on its old lines is a playedout force, and that the wage-earners must look exclusively to political action to improve their position. The combination of these two doctrines may easily produce a feeling that the workmen ought to display their strength on every possible: opportunity. ' "'