The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORTED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1907. THE STRIKERS AND THE LAW.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 65, 16 March 1907, Page 4

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

SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1907. THE STRIKERS AND THE LAW.

For the cause that lacks assistance. For tho wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that ice can do.

The news that the strike is over will be received with genuine relief and satisfaction from one end of the colony to the other. The Canterbury and Southland slaughtermen, who have been working in unison, have secured practically all they asked, and have agreed to return to work on IMonday. They have accepted 23/ per hundred for killing ''freezers"; but the employers have agreed that no dead sbeep shall be skinned, that fines for careless work shall be inflicted only after two -warnings, and that the men shall be paid for waiting-time after the first fifteen minutes. Altogether the men have good reason to be satisfied with what they have secured. But we believe that we voice the sentiments of all thoughtful and intelligent men and women throughout the colony when we again express our regret that the men refused to take the legitimate means of redress afforded them by the Arbitration Court. To say that they are dissatisfied with the Court because its members are not familiar with tbe facts of the trader is no answer. Ample opportunities are pi lor imp all raarj inforraainomn ia.e jonageigc- jro no-jocm ______ ______ cre_lr_- a. system to -wificli ___.(_ wage-car-ners of in .is colony owe a keavy debt of ______ <A last, but not. iCftStj "While congratulating themselves 'upon -what tliey have gamed by the strike, they cannot afford, to forget -\v____fc they have to pay for it through loss of ■wages and the temporary disorganisa.tioii of the trade, which, is do____c_ in i__a__y ways to react injuriously upon themselves. All strikes we hold are dangerous, wasteful, and inefficient means of securing redress for the grievances of labour, and we believe that this view of the ease is sufficiently well established here to deter our wage-earners from ignoring the Arbitration Court in future. But meanwhile the Court has to face a very painful responsibility. The strikers have broken the law, and the legal penalty must be enforced against them. The legal arguments advanced by the Crown Prosecutor at Christchurch show that in these cases the Imprisonment for Debt Abolition Act does not apply; at all events, Mr. Justice Cooper has decided that for such penalties imprisonment may be imposed in case of non-payment of fine. The law is apparently clear enough in its intention; for Mr. HallJones, speaking not long since at Christchurch, pointed out that penalties against employers for breaking arbitration awards would certainly be thus enforced. Keferring to the last session of the Arbitration Court at Wellington, when no less than 23 charges were brought against employers for breaches of the labour laws, the Acting Premier said distinctly that "if the employers had not paid their fines legal steps would have been taken, and, if there was no other method of enforcing the fines, the employers would have been sent to prison." We are fond of boasting that in this country there is no distinction between rich and poor-before the law; and the Arbitration Court can certainly not draw the line between them. We are convinced that there is not in any quarter any desire to treat the men concerned vindictively or oppressively. But the dignity of the law is at stake, and unless the Arbitration system is to be reduced at once to a farce, the law must take its course. It is a matter for sincere regret that s_i_. stgjs shonid bg

necessary; but we can only applaud the decision of the Minister for labour, who has absolutely declined to interfere, even by suggestion, with the action of the Supreme Court, And, painful as the situation is. w e believe that the recognised leaders of labour throughout the colony can be trusted to realise their responsibilities to the country, and to say and do nothing that might in any way militate against the prompt vindication of the authority of the law.