The Aurkland Star: WITH WHICH AHD INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo MONDAY. FEBRUARY 28, 1947. THE LIMITS OF THE LAW.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 49, 28 February 1927, Page 6

The Aurkland Star: WITH WHICH AHD INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo

MONDAY. FEBRUARY 28, 1947. THE LIMITS OF THE LAW.

Far ihs cause that lacks assistance, Far t'M wrong that needs rssisiMC*, For the future in the distance, And the joad that tee can da. —a—ra—m——a——————a—

The Baldwin Government has already committed itselx 10 the revision of British industrial law in regard to the rights and privileges of trade anions. Now it appears, from an announcement just made by the Earl of Birkenhead, that the Conservatives intend to lis more definitely the limits of the law respecting the general strike. The enact position in which the general strike stands has never yet been conclusively denned, for the sufficient reason chat the British Courts never had to consider the question of the general strike before last year. Even the dictum of Sir John Simon, that a general strike is a direct breach of the law, though backed by his high legal reputation, still needs .judicial and Parliamentary confirmation, and the Government apparently proposes to meet this want during the current session. It goes without saying that the Earl of Birkenhead's statement will be quoted freely by the extremists of the Labour party as proof positive that the Government is determined to paralyse the unions and reduce Labour to impotence. But this, of course, is an entirely unfair and illogical inference. It is based on the assumption that the general strike is, like any other strike, simply an industrial movement. But nothing can well be further from the truth than this. It is true that the general strike is largely industrial or economic in origin. But so are many wars, and no one could seriously contend that a war is purely an industrial conHict. The fact is that the general strike is an organised attempt to coerce .t. community or a nation by depriving it of "the right to live'' unless and until it consents to obey the dictates of a certain seetion of its industrialists'. From this point of view the general strike is as much a direct attack upon the safety and the existence of the State as any overt treasonable act that could be perpetrated and conceived.

The workmen of Britain are notoriously not given to abstract theories about political and economic questions. But the majority of them saw very quickly that the general strike was in effect a blow aimed, at the nation's heart, and they speedily made up their minds that they would not be parties to the destruction of the country's social and political life, particularly if they were expected to commit suicide at the same time. In this decision they were supported by the more moderate and rational of their leaders, who distinguished clearly between the ordinary industrial strike and the mis-named general strike, which is in reality a social revolution. Therefore the Baldwin Government, if and when it decides to treat the general strike in a legislative sense as "a criminal conspiracy against the State," will merely register the conviction which the nation as a whole has already expressed and acted upon.