MELBOURNE ITEMS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2870, 4 December 1890, Page 4

MELBOURNE ITEMS.

(rno.M ock own coukksi'oxde.nt.) Mkuioiuxu. November 1. Tuekk is reason to hopo " tha strike" will soon cease to be a stock item in these letters. It will shortly become a thin<r of the past, though unhappily its effects will remain for some time longer. There is not only the depression in all branches of business, the result of unearned millions, to bo faced and endured by all classes, but there is the complete change that will have beeu effected in the condition of a great number of workmen to be met and considered. Hitherto, men have been accustomed to strike, KOinetimes with good reason, sometimes without any reason at all, and when the dispute has been adjusted, they havo gone back to work in a body, as a matter of course. 15ut now all tlmt has been changed, and the handful of hot-headed leaders, who sway the dcstiniosof many thousands of working meu, have themselves effected the change. Keedless to say that the change is for the worse, hccsmso everybody knows that it is so. The reason thereof lies upon tho surface. Thinking to deal a crushing blow, which would at once bring the employers to their kuees, the very magnitude of tho strikeshowed at the beginning that no one branch of trade could resist it, aud that the only chance of withstanding it consisted iu combination as tho workers had combined. This was a result upon which the strike leaders had not calculated, aud it could easily be seen that, notwithstanding their assertion to the contrary, their ranks were thrown into confusion, and that a total rout and submission was only a work of time.

Amongst other things, of which they wero probably ignorant, or, nt all events, upon which tliey (lid not count, were the great numbers of qualified workmen outside their unions ; tho engagement of tlieso men to fill the places the unionists hacl loft; the determination of tho Government to safeguard tho lives aud limbs of sunh freo labourers as desired to work : and, lastly, the firm resolve of the em-, ployors not to dismiss these men in order to make room for tho unionists whon the strike fund became exhausted, and they wero driven to resume work. Of course it is hard upon the old hands, or so many of them as would have preferred to remain at work. But that cannot be helped. If, in becoming a unionist, a man ceases to be a freo agent ho must bear the consequence, Many a man who has taken tho "Queen's shilling" has been killed in battle owing to the blunder on the part of his general; but he takes tho risk with hii eyes open when 110 enlists, and the trades' unionist does the same. There cannot be two opinions regarding: the decision of the omployers. To retain iu their servico all tho free labourers who are competent is only an act of common justice ; to dismiss them would be an act of dishonour. On the other hand, tho determination of tho Government to preserve law and order has incensed the Trades Hall party, although they must havo been fools to thiuk that things would have been otherwise. True, if intimidation, kicks, blows and brickbats had been permitted a free hand, the employers must have given way after a short struggle, because everything would have been uc a standstill; but the idea that streets and houses must be loft without gas, and that thousands of cooking stoves and gas engines must be stopped, because a handful of officers conceived their bread to be badly buttered, was oue that could only have entered the disordered braiu of a lunatic. And, in doing what they did in protecting men who eho-e to work, the ) Government merely performed one of tho first duties for which all Governments exists.

It li:i3 been plainly .mid that the Miui>toriul defeat last week wan brought about by tho Trade* Hall as a punishment for the eourre thus taken. Nothing; of tho kind. Tho <ioverutuent has been tottering for weoks past. and its vacation of the Treasury Lenclies was only a question of time. Many of their supporters knew thin, aud they went over to the Opposition, not to punish Government at the bidding of Trades Hall, but in order to stand well with that party when they next become candidates for the £,')00 a year. If that were the only issno upon which Mr Gillies was defeated, then he would have reason to be proud of his defeat. But what if the strike was the effect of it causo beyond tho control of either labour or capital? What if it was preordained—an event that has been slowly maturing, and has now been let loose upon usas a puuish* ment for oursins ? Hear whut a leading Wesleyan minister has to say about it: — •' Was it not possible,'' lie asked, "to perceive tho hand of God in the great strike that has been affecting tho community ! Might it not be regarded as a sign of God's vengeance for the desecration of the Lord's Day in a multitude of ways by almost all classes amongst us ? Perhaps God usorl capital to smite labour aud labour to smite capital, and labonr and capital to smite tho public, and thero was need of national humiliation and uational abasement. If we would ward off such visitations, wo must learn to keep God's Sabbath aud to revereacu Ilia sauotuarics." I withhold this gentleman's name ; though I cannot forboar expressing the opiniou that many perrons, who reverence the Sabbath as much as he enn do, will think that he made a very silly spccch.