STRIKES

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1151, 17 February 1874, Page 4

STRIKES

[WESTPOBT EVENING STAB.] There is an act in force iu Victoria, known as the Masters and Servants Act, whereby breach of agreement, either expressed or implied, renders the offender amenable to punishment. The employers in money penalties, and the servant in forfeiture of wages and liability to imprisonment. It is urged in many quarters that some such legal enactment will have to be introduced in New Zealand, as a deterrent to the present tendency, on the merest colorble pretext, to strike for higher wages by workers in all grades of mechanical industry. Such enactment being necessary not only to protect the employer but also the employed. A. standing item of telegraphic news for months past has been that men in such and such a trade, in this place or that, have struck for higher wages and shorter hours. From tailors and sailors, to butchers and bakers, the movement has spread, and employers have in most instances submitted at discretion to exacting terms, rather than suspend the work whereby they themselves prosper. It is not maintained, so far as press opinions convey the sentiments of the public in the matter, that strikes are altogether unwarranted by circumstances. The contest between labor and capital prevailing in the old world is making its influence felt in the new, and hence agitation must necessarily follow, but it is held that some legislation is necessary as affording the means of settling disputes which arbitration or mutual agreement fail to satisfactorily effect. In a word a check is required that shall prevent the value of labor being increased in undue proportions by unfair pressure in the hour of emergency. Agriculturists in New Zealand are just now submitting helplessly to the demand for almost ruinous rates of wages, and although their employees gain present advantage by combining to make extortionate demands, the reaction to follow when the harvest has all been garnered will leave them not one whit better than before. And such is but one instance among many wherein the screw has been turned to a point beyond endurance, or if endured for a time, still open to vigorous protestations. In the present dearth of labor these tactics cannot be circumvented, nor is it supposed that a Masters and Servants Act would make men more honest or industrious, or cause them to work for less than a fair days' wage, but it would have this good effect, that employers making certain stipulated engagements for defined periods, could keep their employees strictly bound to the terms of such engagements.