The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and The Echo. SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1903.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 110, 9 May 1903, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and The Echo.

SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1903.

F»r the ciuse that lacks assistance For -the wrong that needs resistance Far the future in the distance And the good that we can do. .

THE VICTORIAN

RAILWAY CRISIS

Tkc struggle between the Victorian railway employees arid the Government has now reached the decisive stage, and there seems every reason to fear that it may result in & strike Avhieh would go far to paralyse Australian commerce and would mean incalculable waste and ruinous loss to the whole Commonwealth. This unfortunate conflict is the more to be regretted because it appears that it might have been avoided by the exercise of a little tact and moderation on both sides. But the CiviL servants of Victoria have regarded the Irvine Government as their natural enemy ever since their wages were reduced, and they were excluded from the ordinary franchise. Mr Irvine, who-has a distinct faculty for plain speaking, in his manifesto appealed to the electors against "the rebellious spirit of the great inasa of the Civil servants." and asked .for special powers to prevent the : Government from .being paralysed by the-action of its own employees. The public servants, allied with the Trades Hall party, worked with the Opposition against Mr Irvine. But at the last el'eAion the Government gained a triumphant'majority, and it i» likely that the bitter enmity roused in this struggle has prevented both parties from taking a rational view of the present situation. As matters now stand the railway employees have finally rejected the Government demand that the executive officers 1 of their unions should secede from the Trades Hall, and have decided to asseVt their independence by going out on strike. : The fgeneial argument on which the action of che' Victorian Government is based is the widely' accepted principle that Civil servants must be directly.and solely controlled by the people through Parliament. That is, of course, the reason and the excuse for the objection which obtains in most civilised countries to any connection between Civil servants and political organisations. As the t- Age" has remarked, the real parties to the dispute are not the Ministry and the Trades Hall Council, but the people and their employees. The Victorian Minister for Railways has said that it is impossible, to leave the transport business of the country in the hands of men:who for partisan purposes may at any moment disorganise the whole industrial system of the continent. Moreover, the people of "Vdctbria-have•riot forgotten that inAitgust last. yeajy aA a public meeting called to organise-opposition against" ;the Government, the secretary of the '"En-. gine-drivers'- Association declared, in a

phrase now almost historical, that; if all other means failed to attain their ends, "the wheels will stop going; round."

It will be observed that the Government has assumed that the Trades Hall is a political organisation. . r This the Trades Hall Council ,|ndthe affiliated unions strenuously deny. "The secretary of the Trades Hall has -stated that his Council is not "by a long chalk" so much of a political body as the Orange Lodge, the Hibernian Society or the Australian Natives' Association, about which no such difficulty has been raised. On the other hand, the "Argus" observes that "the public has known tae Trades Hall through its own advocates and defenders, and also by" its acts for many years, and it has never had the least doubt that it is an institution mainly political and confessedly.so. The fact has not been concealed or excused. or, mitigated by Trades Hall orators. It has been gloried in, and the hopes of the Labour Party have: been based upon.its growing political influence." But even if the protests of the Trade's Hall Vahd the railways employees were accepted on this point, a further difficulty arises. If the Trades Hall is'not a political body, it is certainly an industrial organisation, and as such may easily implicate in its own policy Civil servants 'connected with it. But the Railway Unions will not even admit this. They say that the Trades Hril Council has no authority over the affiliated unions andno power to order a strike. This Sine of defence seems to prove rather too much; f6r If the Trades Hall has no political and no industrial authority it is quite impos sible-to account for-the immense influ ence it admittedly exercises both in political and industrial circles through out; Victoria;

The real question at issue,' therefore, still remains whether Civil servants, as under a specialresponsibility to the general public, do not owe it to their employers to abstain from connection with organisations that may >by . their action compromise tie great public interests which they are bound to conserve. In the other scale we^may"place.the arguments as to personal: liberty and independence of action which are freely used by the unions an".which are answerable for the widespread sympathy that is being expressed for them throughout the colonies. The whole question is certainly open to argument, but the most deplorable feature of the struggle is that neither side seems to have fairly considered the other's point of view. Mr Bent, the Victorian Minister for Railways, has certainly spoken in a very autocratic fashion, and the Railway Unions have decided to strike just at the moment when Parliament is called t6 discuss the matter, and there is some prospect of a peaceful compromise. In any ease Parliament must be the final arbiter in such a conflict, and if the unions refuse to await its decision, whatever be. the merits of their case, they will put themselves distinctly in the wrong. We need not enlarge upon the disastrous nature of strikes :in general, but the bare pbssibility of such a calamity points clearly to the inadequacy of the"present means for settling such disputes in Australia, and the urgent need for a more efficient system of conciliation or arbitration.