REVOLUTIONARY STRIKES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 259, 2 November 1925, Page 6

REVOLUTIONARY STRIKES.

The Australian strike —or series of strikes—took an ugly turn in Queensland when the difficulty arose over the coaling of meat ships, but there is an uglier development still in the threatened strike of railwaymen. It is not lung since the Queensland Government, under the leadership of Mr. Gillies, dealt with a railway strike by taking the line of least resistance. The Prime Minister lectured the railwaymen for striking, but he conceded nearly all their demands. It was feared at tlie time that this would be an encouragement to railwaymen to use direct action, and this fear is justified by the news from Queensland to-day. The railwaymen refuse to handle coal for a ship, and in answer to the new Premier's warning 'that refusal will mean dismissal, they are threatening to strike. Probably they reckon on Mr. McCormick being as pliable as Mr. Gillies, but if Mr.

-McCormick gives way, what becomes of good government? Already the Ministry has appeared to bo unduly considerate in its attitude towards the strikers in the northern ports, but it could plead that in a situation which bad possibilities of rioting it wished to try conciliation before it put the forces of the S'.ate behind the farmers and the shipowners in pursuit of their lawful occasions. The present crisis is a plain attack by civil servants on the com mon rights of citizens, and a defiance of the State's authority. The Queensland Government is in an unhappy position. To the Federal Prime Minister.. request for police protection it sent a reply which in effect said "Mind your own business." Subsequent events have shown that the expression of rectitude in this reply was hardly justified. It has been the same in Western Australia, where expressions of pained surprise at the idea of lawlessness in the State ports have been followed by raids on shipping and violent acts on board. One cannot wonder that the farmers of Queensland arc moving. In some parts they have been suffering loss for month after month through the anti-social acts of strikers. Some of them were even denied use of the highways when the railways were idle. Iv the circumstances tempers will be high, and if the strikers persist there may be grave clashes between them and the producers. While we are on this subject we may draw our readers' attention to the opinion of the secretary of a Western Australian branch of the Waterside V orkers' Federation, thac "the original intention of those who engineered the British seamen's strike was to precipitate a general strike throughout Australia, not for the purjiose of securing better conditions for the seamen, but for revolutionary purposes." When similar things have been said by Mr. Havelock Wilson and by the "capitalistic Press" friends of the striking seamen have been indignant. It would be interesting to know what the NewZealand Labour party thinks of this pronouncement by an Australian union secretary.