The Dominion. FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1908. A CITY WITHOUT STRIKES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 85, 3 January 1908, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1908. A CITY WITHOUT STRIKES.

To New Zealanders, who, are accustomed to boast that by virtue of their. Arbitration Act tliey live in a land without; strikes, it should be interesting to ]earii',tliat there-is., in America at least ope populous and busy manufacturing -city ? which has lived, in: a state .of almost unbroken ; industrial peace* lor, over half a century. , ■ The city in quwty a is .Manchester, in New It is about the size of Wellington, and is the centre of an important branch of the cotton milling industry.. In fifty-five years there have heen oijly two general strikes, and one other serious strike. This result has been achieved, not by the aid of any State regulation pf industry, but entirely by intelligent bargaining' between. the representatives of the workers and. the employers. Union labour is very highly organised at Manchester, and in nearly every case the Union is said to control labour conditions in its trade.On the employers' side the situation is dominated by the Arnoskeag .Manufacturing: Company—a lnige concern,' with a double row of co'tton mills nearly, a mile and a half long—and it is very largely by the wise and far-seeing policy adopted by the Company in relation to its . employees that the present condition of industrial stability has been reached. The Company, has recognised jwhat a great many employers still fail''to dothat it is not good business to enter on a, narrow, and ,ugly struggle with its ineh for every little advantage that can be gained: It has recognised that, its employees have a stake in the industry,; and it has removed the,first two great causes of discontent—poverty and lack of opportunity—by taking, care that., the least, ,wage paid shall alwavs be above the cost of livins- , -

. The employees; in short, feeL that they have so piuch at stake in the business that they ha;ve as little liking'for /the uncertainties of ' strikes • as have their employers . themselves^' and the irresponsible agitator in consequence finds Manchester a barren and unprofitable field for his activity. There are personal grievances among the men, of course, many of them just; but, generally speaking, capital arid labour get along because ■ they deal fairly with e'ach other. The Unions are strong, and the managers of the business know it. The managers have the power of capital behind them and the Unions know it. .Both sides however, have wisely refrained from talking about their strength, and from threats or bluster. There has thus 'in the course of years grown up a tradition of treatment that each may expect from the other. In New Zealand strikes were ma,de illegal because of their hurtfulness to the community at large: in this New Hampshire city they have ceased because the parties to the quarrel have had the sense to rpcognise that it is more to their interest to meet one another and keep the industry going thap to fight. What some of us in New Zealand have yet to learn is that the exercise of a spirit. of conciliation and compromise is as essential to the success of a system of State regulation of industry as it is to the old voluntary methods. .AJso that, no matter in what manner an industry may be controlled or regulated, agitators who make it their business to bring employers and employed into opposition are parasites of a decidedly more harmful description than most of those over which Socialist orators are accustomed to wax indignant.