The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1913. THE STRIKE AND ITS LESSON.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 303, 20 December 1913, Page 4

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

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1913. THE STRIKE AND ITS LESSON.

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

Yesterday the executive of the Federated Seamen's Union in Wellington officially declared the strike "off" so far as it is concerned, and the members of the union subsequently signed an agreement with the shipping companies on terms apparently satisfactory to both parties. The most important feature of the agreement is that all branches of the Seamen's Union in New Zealand are to register under the Arbitration Act, and their agreements are to be similarly registered. The terms as to wages and other conditions of employment are the same as under last year's agreement, which is now practically renewed for three years. Apparently all the workers, the members of the new unions as well as the strikers who now return to work, are to -De placed upon the same footing; at all events, there is no provision for preference of any kind; and-the "old hands" are already actively

engaged in signing on, as far as possible, in their old ships. Thus, for all practical purposes, the strike ends; the embargo on the New Zealand boats at Australian ports is removed, and our coastal and intercolonial shipping trade will at once resume its usual course. The seamen's agreement seems to have been made without any reference to the position of the -waterside workers or the miners, and at present no information is available regarding the line of action which those

unions will now take. The seamen came out in sympathy with the watersiders, and their present decision follows the course already taken by other unions not directly involved in the original dispute.

As all the ports in the Dominion have now been opened, and supplies of coal appear to be coming forward pretty freely 'from elsewhere, the industrial life of the country will soon return to something like ite normal levelIt is impossible to comment upon the history of this most unfortunate industrial struggle without reflecting upon the disastrous losses that it has inflicted upon the whole country, and more especially upon the wage-earner* and the strikers themselves. The secretary of the Seamen's Union stated yesterday in Wellington, that £l,poo would be needed for strike pay and other purposes next week, and the union had only £-100 in hand. These figures may give some idea of the heavy calls on the union resources and the extent to which the funds accumulated by the workers have been depleted during the past two months. But though we know- that the loss in wages in this district alone may be reckoned in tens of thousands, and that Parliament has already voted £ 100,000 to meet expenses incurred in connection with the strike, we are well aware that it is quite impossible to estimate the indirect losses sustained by merchants and employers in the towns and by the producers in the rural districts through the dislocation of trade and the disorganisation of the industrial and commercial system thus caused. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that New Zealand has lost a million through this strike, and it would be exceedingly difficult for even the most enthusiastic advocate of Labour's rights and claims to point to a single advantage or benefit that it has secured for the workers.

As a matter of fact, far rrom benefiting the workers, the conflict has been •more disastrous Xo them than to any other section of the community. And the reason thai the record of this struggle presents a picture of such unrelieved .gloom is thait the strike was fi'om the outset altogether unwise and unjustifiable.

The strike originated with a dispute between a.number of shipwrights and a single company over a matter probably not involving more than f 100 a year in wages. The issues were subsequently complicated by the industrial dispute at Huntly, but it seems probable that even if that had never come into the arena, the waterside strike at Wellington would have extended to other ports in the Dominion. The triviality of the cause, and the shockingly disproportionate injuries inflicted in this distressing and dangerous conflict may serve to remind us again of the folly and futility of the "sympathetic" strike. It is surely absurd to argue that because a bricklayer quarrels with a contractor in Invereargill, therefore every shade of industry in the Dominion from the Bluff to the North Cape is to be thrown out of gear. The -workers are to lose their wages, the employers are to lose their profits, and the -whole commercial and industrial mechanism of the country is to break down. Such an argument is surely repugnant to the most elementary ideas of justice and common sense; and yet it 6eems that fthis hitter lesson was needed by the workers to teach ■them, in the words -of Mr P. Snowden, how dangerous -and ineffective a weapon they are using when they indulge in a "sympathetic" strike.

But the "sympathy" strike, foolish and useless as it always Is, lias not been the worst feature of this industrial upheaval. Behind and below it all has been the maleficent influence of Syndicalism. One of the most hopelessly insane doctrines of the Syndicalist is his refusal to bp bound by agreements. All the possibilities of civilised social existence are involved in tacit agreements between all of m to

respect each other's rights; and the repudiation of our responsibilities to each other would mean the destruction, instant and irremediable, of everything that makes life worth keeping. The Syndicalist is as much the enemy of society as the Anarchist, and, like the Anarchist, his doctrine is simply that of wholesale, annihilation. He can pull down, but he has no idea of constructing or rebuilding; and so he must be, of all men, the most dangerous guide that the workers could trust and follow. Without a determination on the part of workers and employers alike to hold by their promises _and pledges, industrial peace and civilisation would be alike impossible. Nor can we believe that the workers of Kew Zealand, wnere the average intelligence is far higher than in most other countries, and where the natural course of industrial development has secured so many benefits and advantages for the masses, will be so easily deluded again by the specious sophistries of Syndicalism. The "'saving common-sense of our workers would easily protect them against these dangers if only they would insist upon managing their own affairs instead of submitting themselves, bound hand and foot, to the control of autocratic agitators who have taken up, as a life mission, the task of fomenting ill-feeling and promoting strife between wage-earners and employers. The Secret Ballot— which simply means the right of the worker to vote according to his convictions without coercion or intimidation— will gave the unionists of New Zealand from untold harm if they will only insist upon this sound rational precaution; and with this safeguard firmly established, we will have less to fear in the future from the monstrously perverse, and ruinously destructive doctrines by which so many of our wage-earners have been misled during the past three months to the injury to themselves and of the industries upon which their own prosperity and that of the whole country so largely depend.