The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1911. STRIKES AND THEIR CAUSES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 193, 15 August 1911, Page 4

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

TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1911. STRIKES AND THEIR CAUSES.

For ttle cause that lacks assistance. For the wrong that need* resistance For the future in the distance. And the good that %ce can do.

Industrial matters have improved perceptibly in London within the past few days; but to judge by our latest cable messages things are worse rather thru better at Liverpool. Riots of a ferocious description have been engaging the energies of the police in many quarters of that crowded seaport, and nothing but the presence of the military who are held in readiness to support the law has prevented more serious outbreaks. As usual one or two shots have sufficed to clear the streets, but the position is still dangerous, and, in fact, this great city, like London last week, is very little removed from a stage of siege. But the trouble is not confined to one or two centres. At Manchester the railway men are threntrning to stop work, apparently out of sympathy for the Liverpool strikers- and at Glasgow the tramway service is entirely suspended, and violent conflicts have occurred between the police and rioters, involving serious personal injuries and destruction of property. Altogether, there is only too much reason to fear that the unrest which has pervaded the British industrial system for some years past has not yet reached its climax, and that the success of the London transport workers may induce the wage-earners in many other industries to face the risks and privations incidental to strikes, in the hope of extorting better terms from their employers.

Our. chief reason for believing that tho industrial situation will be worsa before it is better at Home is, as we in dicated yesterday, that the demands of the workers are in many instances just and well-founded. It is only necessary to glance at the claims they put forward to realize that in a great many cases the wage-earners will not settle down into quiescence, until the conditions of employment are improved, and the average rate of wages is raised in many important trades. As we might expect, the. Conservative newspapers are denouncing the strikers and are doing their best to make political capital out of these disturbances. According to the 'Tall Mall Gazette" the whole trouble i*, as usual, to be traced back to Mr. Lloyd George and his Limehouse speech. But no denunciation of the landlords and the privileged classes is needed to stir up discontent among men who cannot earn more than 20/ a week, or have to strike before they can get their day's work cut down below 14 hours. It is mere wilful perversity to shut one's eyes to the flagrant evils which exist in tne industrial system at Home, and which, long and patiently endured, are at last driving hundreds of thousands of men, and women to desperation. The worst feature of the present crisis is that those engaged in the strike seem to have got completely beyond their leaders' control; for as the "Westminster Gazette - ' contends, the labour organisations and their officials have done all that could be done to prevent violence and maintain order. Still we have already had proof at London that even a most dangerous aand far-reaching strike can be settled by peaceful means. The good work done by Mr. Askwith in this respect is everywhere recognised, and though some of the strikers object to Conciliation, which they regard o-s an insidious device of the employers to gain their objects, it is clear that mutual concessions and compromises are more likely to secure permanently the best interests of the workers than the obstinate determination to fight the struggle out to the bitter end.